Son-rise in Kupwara

Separatist leader Bilal Lone's entry into the mainstream will redraw equations in Kashmir politics

- TARIQ BHAT

KASHMIR’S POLITICS IS likely to witness a major change, as separatist leader Bilal Gani Lone is preparing to bid farewell to separatism and enter the mainstream. Bilal is the elder son of Abdul Gani Lone, the Hurriyat Conference leader who founded the People’s Conference. Considered a moderate who had wide support across north Kashmir, Abdul Lone was thrice elected from Handwara in Kupwara district before militancy erupted in Kashmir. He was assassinated on May 21, 2002, during a rally at the Srinagar Eidgah.

Sources told THE WEEK that Bilal would soon tour Kupwara and other districts in north Kashmir to reach out to his father’s loyalists and shore up support for his electoral plunge. The Centre has promised to hold the assembly polls early next year, after the electoral rolls are revised by the end of November.

Bilal joined the Hurriyat Conference after hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani and his supporters demanded that the People’s Conference be expelled from the separatist grouping for fielding proxy candidates in the 2002 polls. Sajad Lone, Bilal’s younger brother, had by then become the head of the People’s Conference. When Hurriyat chairman Molvi Abbas Ansari rejected Geelani’s demand, the Hurriyat split into moderate and hardliner factions. Bilal joined the moderate camp while Sajad quit separatist politics and contested the 2009 Lok Sabha polls from north Kashmir. In 2014, Sajad won from Handwara and his People’s Conference bagged a second seat in Kupwara. He later joined the PDPBJP coalition and became a minister.