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Journalism of Courage
As Jammu and Kashmir gears up to hold Assembly polls for the first time in a decade, the Union territory is witnessing the rise of a new political generation. The polls will see a fourth-generation politician as well as a father-son duo in the fray.
While the National Conference (NC) has nominated at least six political scions, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reposed its faith on a member of its “first family” and tasked her with reclaiming the family’s pocket borough.
Here is a look at the political scions in the fray.
Mehar Ali
The son of senior NC leader and Srinagar MP Mian Altaf, Ali has been fielded from the ST-reserved Kangan Assembly seat, seen to be the family’s bastion which Altaf held for four consecutive terms between 1987 and 2014. The Mian family, in fact, has never lost an election from Kangan, barring 1983, when a member was not in the race. That year, Ali’s grandfather Mian Bashir contested the polls from Rajouri.
Bashir’s father Mian Nizam-ud-din first won the Kangan seat in 1962.
Ali, the latest politician in the family, is the chairman and CEO of the M B Educational Institute in Ganderbal.
Salman Sagar
The NC’s candidate for the Hazratbal Assembly segment, Sagar is the son of party general secretary and former minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, who is the party’s pick from the Khanyar Assembly constituency that he has been representing since 1996.
Salman has for long been in politics and was elected as the Mayor of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation in 2008. He has also served as the NC’s provincial youth president for Kashmir.
Dr Sajad Shafi Uri
A doctor by profession, Sajad is the NC’s candidate from the border constituency of Uri and hails from a political family.
He is the son of party stalwart and ex-minister Mohammad Shafi Uri and the son-in-law of former state Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather.
Sajad quit his job in 2006 to foray into politics and is seen to be filling the vacuum of his father, who first won the seat in 1972 and is a multiple-time minister. In 2009, he was given a Rajya Sabha berth but resigned in 2014 after winning the Assembly election.
Hilal Akbar Lone
A lawyer by profession, Hilal is the NC’s candidate from the Sonawari Assembly seat, which was last represented by his father and former Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Speaker, Mohammad Akbar Lone.
Hilal was booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for his alleged provocative speech during the 2020 District Development Council (DDC) polls and spent a month in prison before being released on bail. He was also detained after the abrogation of Article 370 and lodged at Srinagar’s MLA hostel for several months.
With his health failing , the senior Lone, who had also represented the Baramulla seat in Parliament from 2019 to 2014, was out of the race but reportedly had been seeking Assembly nominations for both his sons.
Ahsan Pardesi
The NC’s candidate for the Lal Chowk Assembly seat, Ahsan is the son of bureaucrat-turned-politician Ghulan Qadir Pardesi, who has switched allegiances between the NC and PDP several times.
Ahsan has however stuck with the NC and also serves as the party’s vice-president for the Kashmir province.
Tanvir Sadiq
Son of the late Sadiq Ali, who was seen as a close aide of NC founder Sheikh Abdullah, Tanvir is the party’s candidate from the Zadibal Assembly segments, which has a significant Shia population.
Though active in politics for some time now, Tanvir, the chief spokesperson of the NC and a former political advisor to ex-CM Omar Abullah, is making his electoral debut in the upcoming polls.
Syed Muntazir Mehdi
The son of Hurriyat leader Syed Aga Hassan, Muntazir recently joined the PDP and is the party’s candidate from the Budgam Assembly segment.
Muntazir had been actively associated with the functioning of the Anjuman-E-Sharie Shian, an influential religious organisation of the Shias. His cousin Aga Ruhullah, the Srinagar MP of the NC, is his political rival.
Yawar Shafi Banday
The grandson of former two-time Shopian MLA Abdul Majeed Banday – who represented the seat as a Congress MLA in 1962 and as an Independent in 1972 – Yawar is the PDP’s candidate for the seat.
His father Mohammad Shafi Banday unsuccessfully contested the Shopian seat in the 2008 Assembly polls as a Congress candidate.
Iltija Mufti
The daughter of PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, she is the party’s candidate from Bijbehara, a seat that the party has held since 1996.
Even though she is only making her electoral debut now, Iltija was appointed as Mehbooba’s media advisor last year and extensively campaigned for her mother during the recent Lok Sabha elections.
