Jailed separatist leader Engineer Rashid’s brother, a govt teacher, set for J&K poll debut

A government teacher, Khurshid Ahmad Sheikh resigned days after his brother won the Lok Sabha polls. He will contest from his brother’s former seat Langate.

Engineer Rashid's brother to contest J&K assembly polls

Jailed Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid. (Express file photo)

The Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) has announced Khurshid Ahmad Sheikh, the brother of its founder and jailed Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid as its candidate from Langate for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections. Langate is a constituency that Engineer Rashid, a separatist, represented for two consecutive terms between 2008 and 2019.

Sheikh, a government teacher, resigned from his job in June days after his brother defeated former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and People’s Conference leader Sajad Lone in the Lok Sabha elections. His resignation was accepted last week, enabling him to become the second member of the family after Rashid to take the political plunge. Rashid’s sons, especially his elder son Abrar Rashid, had campaigned for him in the Lok Sabha polls but have yet to formally join politics.

Sheikh is likely to see stiff competition from Irfan Panditpuri of the People’s Conference and Syed Ghulam Nabi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The NC-Congress combine has fielded Ishfaq Ahmad from the seat. Dr Kaleemullah who is the son of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghulam Qadir Lone is in the fray as an Independent. Lone is a member of the eight-member leadership panel of the Jamaat.

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Sheikh is among the nine candidates — eight from the Valley and one from Chamb in Jammu — that the AIP announced on Saturday for the third phase of the Assembly polls on October 1. While Ashok Kumar Raina will contest from Chamb, advocate Mursaleen has been fielded from Sopore. Father-son duo of Nazir Ahmad Khan and Adil Nazir Khan will be the party’s candidates from Beerwah and Gulmarg, respectively.

Langate was once the stronghold of the National Conference (NC), which retained it for four consecutive terms between 1977 and 1996. In the 1999 bypolls, PDP candidate M S Panditpuri, who had switched from the NC, won it while it was won by the NC’s Sharif-ud-din Shariq in 2002. Rashid first won the Assembly seat in the 2008 polls as an Independent and retained it in the 2014 polls.

Bashaarat Masood

Bashaarat Masood is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express. He has been covering Jammu and Kashmir, especially the conflict-ridden Kashmir valley, for two decades. Bashaarat joined The Indian Express after completing his Masters in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University in Kashmir. He has been writing on politics, conflict and development. Bashaarat was awarded with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2012 for his stories on the Pathribal fake encounter. ... Read More

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