Lone, Ramzan locked in tough Handwara battle

In Handwara, Sajjad Gani Lone and Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan are vying for votes in a tense assembly race, with both parties rallying strong local support.

At Banday Mohallah in Handwara, two powerful candidates — People’s Conference (PC) chairman Sajjad Gani Lone and National Conference (NC) veteran Chowdry Mohammad Ramzan — every night are busy chalking out strategies how to win more votes to emerge successful in one of the tough contests in north Kashmir among the 16 assembly segments going to polls in the last phase of elections.

Since 2002, late Abdul Gani Lone, founder of People’s Conference, won Handwara seat thrice.

Lone’s presence here has made Handwara a high-profile constituency. Since 2002, the NC has secured victory from the constituency only once which many see as a bastion of the Peoples’ Conference as the constituency elected late Abdul Gani Lone, founder of People’s Conference, thrice. Even in the recent Lok Sabha polls, Sajjad Lone, who lost the elections, secured a handsome lead from this constituency giving him a solace amid defeat. “I am hopeful that we will secure a good lead from the constituency like we got in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

Lone is contesting from two seats in north Kashmir, Handwara and Kupwara, but his main focus is on Handwara where he has a die-hard cadre support base. During his campaign, he speaks about developmental projects which he got in his constituency, especially a medical college, new road to Bangus and other smaller projects.

The NC candidate and former minister, Chowhry Mohammad Ramzan, has won Handwara thrice in 1987, 1996 and 2008 and he is going village after village, meeting people. “This time I have strong feelings that our candidate will win from Handwara as people realise the importance of this election,” said Qamar Ahmad, NC leader and supporter of Chowdry.

The Handwara town is decked with buntings and banners of both parties and every night leaders of different political parties organise rallies to draw support from people. “In this constituency, the people are politically well aware and here it has been the contest between the NC and the PC for decades. Both the parties have a strong cadre here who use everything to see their candidates successful,” said Tariq Shafi, a postgraduation (economics) student.

There are seven candidates in the fray. AIP candidate Abdul Majid Banday, PDP’s Gauhar Azad Mir and BJP’s Ghulam Mohammad Mir too have support in certain pockets of the constituency.

Banday, however, hopes on the support of Baramulla MP Engineer Rashid who got more than 19,000 votes in Lok Sabha polls. “If we compare the results of the last Lok Sabha votes, it should be a direct fight between Sajjad Lone and Advocate Banday. But once it comes to assembly polls, the AIP candidate can be a vote cutter of both and now it remains to be seen whose votes he will dent more on the polling day,” said Aftab Ahmad Bhat, a businessman in Handwara.