Sajjad Lone files nomination in Kashmir

June 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The National Conference, which is part of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Friday asked the government to resume dialogue with Pakistan for estabilishing "permanent peace" in the region. "We should restart dialogue with Pakistan to establish permanent peace," said Mirza Mehboob Beig, while participating in the debate in the Lok Sabha on the president's speech to the joint session of parliament.

May 16th, 2009 SRINAGAR - His poll defeat may have come as a disappointment, but for Sajjad Lone, the only Kashmiri separatist leader who broke the secessionist taboo to plunge into the electoral fray, his maiden election experience will help him revive his base in the northern part of the Valley, say analysts. Lone, who contested from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat despite militants threats and criticism from his former colleagues, came third.

May 16th, 2009 SRINAGAR/JAMMU - Initial trends Saturday indicated the Congress leading in two seats while its alliance partner, the National Conference (NC), was leading in three Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir. NC patron and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah was leading over his People's Democratic Party (PDP) rival, Molvi Ifftekhar Hussain Ansari, at the end of the first round of counting in Srinagar.

May 13th, 2009 BARAMULLA - Sajjad Gani Lone, who is fighting elections for this Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir, Wednesday voted in his ancestral town of Handwara. People's Conference chairman Sajjad and his mother came to the government girls' higher secondary school in Handwara around 9 a.m.

May 12th, 2009 SRINAGAR - As the constituencies of Baramulla and Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir go to the polls in the last phase Wednesday, all eyes are on separatist leader Sajjad Gani Lone, the surprise entrant in the poll ring. Although there are 13 candidates in the fray in the north Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency of Baramulla, the main contest is between the ruling National Conference (NC) candidate Sharief-ud-Din Sharriq, Muhammad Dilawar Mir of the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) and Lone of the People's Conference.

May 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Campaigning in eighty-six constituencies in six states and two Union Territories that will go to polls in the fifth phase of general elections on May 13 will come to an end this evening. In this phase, polling will take place in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh and Puducherry.

May 11th, 2009 BARAMULLA - Having plunged headlong into an electoral campaign as the first separatist in Kashmir to contest the polls since a revolt broke out in Kashmir in 1989, People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone says he has changed his strategy, not his ideology. Lone has defended his move of entering the electoral process by maintaining that he is still committed to the Kashmiri cause.

May 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Having plunged headlong into an electoral campaign as the first separatist in Kashmir to contest the polls since a revolt broke out in Kashmir in 1989, People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone says he has changed his strategy but not his ideology. 'I have decided to contest polls with a promise to use this platform to represent the voice of the Kashmiri people and to take the strength and merits of our aspirations to the central stage of India where it cannot be ignored or censored out,' Lone told IANS on phone from Srinagar.

May 6th, 2009 SRINAGAR - Government forces locked down Kashmir's main city Srinagar on Wednesday to thwart planned protests against the fourth phase of general elections on Thursday. Troops patrolled deserted streets in Srinagar, cutting off residential areas after the separatists called for a two-day strike from Wednesday.

April 12th, 2009 SRINAGAR - People's Conference chairman Sajjad Gani Lone has said that he would contest the imminent general elections from Jammu and Kashmir. "Fighting elections is a change of strategy, not ideology.

April 11th, 2009 SRINAGAR - In a breakthrough for Indian democracy senior separatist leader Sajad Lone Saturday announced his decision to contest election from Baramulla for a seat in the Lok Sabha. 'I am fighting elections,' Lone, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference, told reporters here.

March 28th, 2009 JAMMU - Former convenor of Shri Amarnath Sangrash Samiti (SASS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Leela Karan Sharma Saturday filed his nomination papers from the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha constituency in Jammu and Kashmir. Hundreds of BJP workers, shouting slogans, accompanied Sharma in a huge procession.

February 25th, 2009 JAMMU - Senior leader of the ruling National Conference Mohammad Akbar Lone was unanimously elected speaker of the newly elected Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly Wednesday. Akbar Lone was the deputy speaker in the last assembly.

February 25th, 2009 JAMMU - The newly elected Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly is meeting Wednesday for the budget session and the first item on its agenda is to elect a speaker, officials said Tuesday. The ruling National Conference, party sources said, has decided to stake its claim for the post and will be fielding former deputy speaker Mohammed Akbar Lone.

December 25th, 2008 SRINAGAR - Terming the huge turnout in Jammu and Kashmir elections as a 'setback', separatist leader Sajjad Lone Friday said he and his colleagues advocating secession needed to introspect. 'The verdict of the people is supreme.