Jammu & Kashmir Assembly polls 2024: Dozens of separatists, family members in election fray
Jammu & Kashmir Assembly polls 2024: Dozens of separatists, family members in election fray
The upcoming assembly elections in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are getting more and more interesting with every passing day. This election is witnessing a major change in the ideologies in the Kashmir valley and separatism is getting converted into the mainstream. Dozens of Kashmiri separatists and their family members have decided to join electoral politics, and some are gaining ground with huge public participation in their rallies.
Ajaz Ahmad Guru, whose brother, Afzal Guru, was convicted of attacking the Indian Parliament, officially entered the political arena by filing his nomination papers as an independent candidate for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections from the Sopore constituency. This development comes 11 years after Afzal was executed in Tihar Jail.
Ajaz, who took voluntary retirement from his position at the Animal Husbandry Department in 2014, is currently working as a contractor.
He has expressed his commitment to addressing the longstanding issues in Sopore, including employment opportunities, infrastructure development, and youth rehabilitation. He emphasised that the region has been “neglected by previous leaders,” underscoring his desire to bring about meaningful change.
“The reason to enter Politics is that we have gone through a lot in the last 35 years. I cannot tell you anything in two minutes, it’s a story of three decades,” said Ajaz Ahmad Guru.
Another candidate is the jailed cleric Sarjan Ahmad Wagay, who is known as Sarjan Barkati and was a prominent face of protest rallies in the valley after the killing of Hizb Commander Burhan Wani.
Sarjan and his wife both have been in custody and their daughter has come out and filed her father’s nomination papers from Ganderbal and Beerwah assembly constituencies. Interestingly, Sarjan would be up against the former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah for the Ganderbal seat.
“I believe in the democracy of India, and I have full faith in it and that’s why I am here. We are going to Beerwah as well. Democracy means where people are powerful, Sarjan saab has equal right to fight elections as someone outside the jail has. If he wants to come to this side of the fence he should be allowed to do so. I am hoping that people will support him. He is a political prisoner and ECI has made it very easy for people. His daughter and son are living like orphans, and no one has gone to help them,” said Adil Nazir, Representative of Barkati.
The other political leaders also include Syed Saleem Geelani of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former head of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP); Javid Hubbi, the son of former Hurriyat leader Ghulam Mohammad Hubbi; Aga Muntazir Mehdi, contesting from Budgam is a prominent Shia cleric and the son of Hurriyat executive member Aga Syed Hassan.
The list also includes Altaf Ahmad Bhat, a candidate of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) from Rajpora who is a social worker from South Kashmir’s Pulwama and the brother of jailed leader Bashir Ahmad Bhat, popularly known as Peer Saifullah.
Kaleemullah, the son of the Jamaat’s former general secretary Ghulam Qadir Lone. An engineer from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Srinagar, who recently finished his doctorate, Kaleemullah is contesting from Langate in North Kashmir’s Kupwara.
Additionally, Munir Khan, the brother of jailed Hurriyat leader Nayeem Ahmad Khan, is also planning to contest.
(News Source Link: Wionews)