Sajjad Lone under pressure to quit Cabinet, flies back home

PDP’s Veeri too turns down ‘inferior’ portfolio, stays away from Civil Secretariat

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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Jammu, Mar 4: Not satisfied with what his supporters dismiss as “inferior Ministry”, separatist-turned-mainstream politician Sajjad Gani Lone flew back to his Srinagar residence on an unscheduled visit without revealing his whereabouts and cause of absence from Civil Secretariat to Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and other State functionaries on day one of the PDP-BJP government’s business in the winter capital in the Indian-administered State of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

Lone incommunicado

Sources in the government disclosed that Lone asked his official driver, security and Police escort to return when they turned up to carry to the Civil Secretariat. His private vehicle drove him straight to the Jammu airport to catch an early morning flight for Srinagar. Travelling as an ordinary civilian passenger, Lone was received by his private staff on arrival in Srinagar and driven to his Rawalpora home where he remained closeted with some friends and colleagues. His cellphone was switched off and he was incommunicado for almost everybody who attempted to call him up or visited his residence for a meeting.

Lone did not even speak to the journalists and camera crews of different television news channels waiting for him for hours. First reported by Authint Mail previous night, Lone was disappointed over the way Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed had assigned to him an “insignificant portfolio” when work was distributed in the 25-member Council of Ministers on Tuesday. He had been allotted the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Science & Technology.

Until his induction in the BJP quota in Mufti’s Cabinet on last Sunday, Lone was reportedly a contender for the high profile Finance portfolio. Later, he expected to get Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution.

A number of separatists---notably Firdaus Baba, Usman Majid, Abdul Gani Naseem, Bilal Lodhi, Engineer Rashid, Kukka Parray and Javed Shah---have joined the political mainstream and become members of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council since 1996. However, Lone has the distinction of becoming the first Minister. Usman, now Congress MLA from Bandipore, has served as Minister of State for Planning during Mufti’s previous stint as Chief Minister in 2002-05.

After his father and the Peoples Conference founder Abdul Gani Lone’s assassination in a terror strike in 2002, Lone shifted loyalty to the Indian side and allegedly fielded proxy candidates who all lost to different political parties in the Assembly elections that year. In the 2008 Assembly elections too, Lone did not contest in person though his sister Shabnam Lone, an advocate at Supreme Court of India, contested and lost to the National Conference candidate Mir Saifullah in Kupwara segment.

The PC rebel Engineer Rashid contested and he was returned twice in Langet segment of Kupwara---in 2008 and 2014. Lone contested his first election---for the Indian Parliament---from the North Kashmir constituency in 2009 but was defeated by the NC candidate Sharief-ud-din Shariq. He also contested the Parliamentary election of 2014 from the same constituency but was defeated by senior PDP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig, PC’s co-founder and deputy to Lone’s father Abdul Gani Lone in 1978. In the 2014 elections, Lone got his first victory in his maiden election for Assembly. One among his candidates, Bashir Ahmad Dar was returned from Kupwara.

Lone and Dar, the two PC MLAs, are associates of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s federal ruling party BJP. Lone’s meeting with Modi stirred a major controversy as many of the separatists called him a “traitor” even as he and his colleague in Kupwara got massive vote against the NC and PDP candidates. His brother Bilal continues to be a senior leader in the Mirwaiz faction of the separatist conglomerate Hurriyat Conference. His wife Asma is the Pakistan-based JKLF founder Amanullah Khan’s daughter.

Lone was not accessible to media for comment but sources close to him told Authint Mail that “some well-wishers” had taken up the matter of his “inferior portfolio” with the BJP high command in New Delhi. “He will definitely quit if he is not obliged with a suitable Ministry. Like his father, he is sentimental and a man of self-respect and not used to tolerate humiliation. Besides, he is under tremendous pressure from his followers to quit and operate only as an Opposition leader”, one of Lone’s key coll asserted.

The PDP leaders maintained that it was “purely a matter between the PC and the BJP”. “Mufti Sahab has allocated only the PDP quota’s portfolios. BJP has itself decided who should get what”, said a PDP leader and Cabinet Minister.

PDP’s Minister Veeri too ‘upset’

Meanwhile, senior PDP leader and four-time MLA from Bijbehara Abdul Rehman Veeri too was conspicuously absent from his office on the first day of his term as a Cabinet Minister. His phone was continuously “not reachable” or switched off. According to informed sources, Veeri has refused to accept the “inferior” portfolio of Horticulture and Haj & Auqaf, while pointing out allocation of multiple superior portfolios to a number of his junior party colleagues and first time MLAs.

Sources said that Mufti had initially decided to assign the “important” portfolio of Rural Development Department to Veeri “after Imran Ansari refused to take it” but at the eleventh hour it went to PDP’s Lolab MLA Abdul Haq Khan. Sajjad Lone is said to have called this change “intriguing”, viewing it as Mufti’s attempt to undermine his influence in Kupwara district.

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