Ahmed Ali Fayyaz/Srinagar

Over 20 years after the Pakistan-backed terrorists assassinated two prominent Kashmiri leaders -Abdul Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference and Aga Syed Mehdi, a Shia leader, their sons are contesting the parliamentary elections.

Sajad Lone,57, is contesting his second Lok Sabha election from Baramulla, while  Aga Syed Ruhullah, is contesting from Srinagar as a candidate of the National Conference.

Lone, a former Congress Minister who was elected as MLA from Handwara, was gunned down by terrorists in broad daylight in Srinagar in May 2002. He was shot by unidentified militants as he was walking down from the dias during a public rally of the separatist Hurriyat Conference.

Aga Syed Mehdi of Budgam’s influential Shia spiritual Aga dynasty was assassinated in an improvised explosive device blast on the Srinagar-Gulmarg Road, when he was driving to Magam in a bullet-proof vehicle provided to him by the J&K Police in November 2000. 

Sajad openly blamed Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani for his father’s killing. However, later he withdrew the statement under pressure.

Sajad took charge of the Peoples Conference and fielded Ghulam Mohiuddin Sofi, who won the 2002 Assembly elections by defeating NC’s Choudhary Mohammad.

Sofi became a Minister in the coalition government of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. Till then Peoples’ Conference was part of the Hurriyat Conference. Sofi’s nomination was seen as a defiance of the boycott call given by the separatist conglomerate for the elections.

This incident led to a split in the Hurriyat as Syed Ali Shah Geelani quit following the umbrella group’s refusal to expel the Peoples Conference. He launched his faction of the Hurriyat.

In 2009, Sajad contested his first Lok Sabha election in which he was defeated by the NC’s Shariefuddin Shariq.

The Peoples Conference contested the 2014 and 2017 Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla.

However, Sajad won his first Assembly election from Handwara in 2014. Back then the PC was the BJP’s only pre-poll ally in Jammu and Kashmir. Sajad defeated NC stalwart Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan to emerge as a giant killer.

Sajad was inducted in Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP coalition government as a Cabinet Minister from the BJP quota. PC’s other candidate Bashir Ahmad Dar was returned from Kupwara.

After Mufti’s death in January 2016, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti retained Sajad in her Cabinet.

When the government of Mehbooba Mufti fell as the BJP withdrew its support to her, Sajad staked claim to the formation with the BJP’s support. However, then Governor Satya Pal Malik did not entertain his claim and he dissolved the Assembly.

Again Sajad joined the Farooq Abdullah-led Peoples Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) to safeguard Article 370 and was detained under the Public Safety Act in August 2019.

In 2020, Sajad’s PC contested the District Development Council (DDC) elections as per a quota allocation from the PAGD. However, soon he quit the PAGD and continued his activities separately under the banner of his PC.

In the current Lok Sabha elections, Sajad is being supported by Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party besides former Minister Hakeem Yasin and the DDC Budgam chairman Nazir Ahmad Khan. His main rival is Omar Abdullah, former minister and leader of the National Conference.

Aga Ruhullah joined the National Conference after his father’s assassination. He won Assembly elections from Budgam in 2002, 2008 and 2014. He was also a minister in Omar Abdullah’s NC-Congress coalition government.

Ruhullah’s father Aga Syed Mehdi contested the Assembly elections as an independent candidate from Budgam in 1987. He was defeated by the NC’s Ghulam Hussain Geelani in a triangular contest. In 1998, he contested the Lok Sabha election on a Congress ticket from Srinagar but lost to the NC’s Omar Abdullah.