People's Conference Chief Sajjad Gani Lone Wins From Handwara

In the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls, People’s Conference chief Sajjad Gani Lone secured victory from Handwara assembly segment. He defeated senior NC leader and former minister Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan by a thin margin of 662 votes. He was seeking his fifth win from the constituency.

Though Lone also contested from Kupwara aside from Handwara, his focus was on the latter considering it as a party bastion. The party founder and Sajjad Lone’s father, the late Abdul Gani Lone, secured victory from Handwara three times: in 1967, 1972, and 1977. In the 1967 and 1972 elections, he won the seat on a Congress ticket, and in 1977, he retained the seat on a Janata party ticket. Then the constituency witnessed NC unleashing victory in the seat in the following years.

Lone is the first one to quit from the separatist spectrum to mainstream politics in 2004. He is the youngest son of Abdul Ghani Lone. In May 2002, Abdul Lone was assassinated by militants at a gathering in Srinagar.

In 2014, Sajjad Lone contested for the Handwara seat and secured 29355 votes. He has defeated NC leader Chowdhary Ramzan by a margin of 5424 votes.

During his campaigns, he stresses on developmental projects he brought to the assembly segment in the past, especially a medical college and other smaller projects.

Lone lost the Lok Sabha elections early this year from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat. He was defeated by former MLA and AIP chief Sheikh Abdul Rashid, alias Engineer Rashid.

Lone is a staunch advocate of the restoration of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and a critic of the abrogation of Article 370. The People’s Conference poll manifesto pledges fights on this ground.