Ex separatist Sajjad Lone sends a feeler
boosts BJP in Kashmir
Written by Muzamil Jaleel |
New Delhi | Posted: November 4, 2014 4:54 am
Signalling post-poll realignments in Jammu and Kashmir politics, Peoples
Conference leader and once part of the separatist combine Sajjad Lone has sent
a strong feeler to the BJP.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Lone, 47, said on Monday that his party
has already announced it will contest the Assembly elections on its own. “The
question of an alliance will arise only after polls. It will depend on various
permutations and combinations — for example what will be the number of seats we
win and whether we matter,’’ he said. “I am open to anything. I am not a
slave to BJP-is-bad-Congress-is-good proposition…I have no fixed mindset and
for me, the distinction between BJP and Congress is immaterial because they
have only a nuanced difference on Kashmir.”
Expressing his appreciation for the fact that RSS leader and BJP
national general secretary Ram Madhav met him in Srinagar recently, he said:
“The national party that dominated the political scene in Kashmir was Congress
and they have confined themselves to Abdullah family and Mufti family. Here is
the change. There is another national party which is in power and whose
national leaders come to Kashmir and meet people like Sajjad Lone.
This is why it seemed strange to people because it hasn’t happened
earlier,’’ he said. “I have been in politics for 12 years and I have rarely met
Congress leaders even socially. They were not interested in people like me. So
if a national leader of BJP shows some respect, the least I can do is to
reciprocate that”.
Lone’s remarks come when the BJP, expecting a landslide in Jammu’s
Hindu-majority areas, is working to establish a loose coalition of parties and
individuals especially from among Muslims in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu’s
hilly districts.
Lone said that a perception has been created in Kashmir as if the
Congress has been a pro-Kashmir political party in the past. “That’s not the
reality. If I compare the Manmohan era with the Vajpayee era, Vajpayee was much
more compassionate in his utterances and creative. During their rule, Congress
was mechanical in approach and lacked any compassion. They lacked feeling,’’ he
said.
When asked how would he see the BJP’s overall politics vis-à-vis
Muslims, he said that “it didn’t matter because Kashmir has its own problems”.
“We cannot transfer national discourse to the regional discourse because
then Kashmir will be the loser,’’ he said. “For us, the biggest question is
whether Congress has a divine right to rule over J&K. For the last 12
years, they have been in power. They have been partners of every ruling
alliance without any accountability. Let them also be accountable and take the
share for what they have done”.
Lone, who joined separatist politics soon after the assassination of his
father, moderate Hurriyat leader, Abdul Gani Lone, unsuccessfully contested the
2009 parliamentary elections. Earlier, his party fielded proxy candidates
during the 2002 assembly elections, an issue that had led to the split in
separatist Hurriyat Conference.
Though Sajjad Lone and his
older brother Bilal Lone joined the Mirwaiz faction of the Hurriyat, Sajjad
Lone left the separatists and contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2009. He had
also talked about Muslim Kashmir and suggested that the Hindu majority
districts in Jammu province can opt out and leave the state.
- See more at:
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/ex-separatist-sajjad-lone-sends-a-feeler-boosts-bjp-in-kashmir/#sthash.pjhBt38J.dpuf
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