Srinagar: Sajad Gani Lone, son of People’s Conference founder Abdul Gani Lone, was on Wednesday elected unopposed as the party’s president for a four year-term.
Addressing a news conference here, former minister and head of the party’s election authority, Syed Basharat Bukhari said that Sajad Gani Lone was today elected unopposed as president of the party.
“We have received eight sets of nominations and all of them have proposed the name of Sajad Gani Lone for the post,” he told reporters.
Bukhari said Lone would be administered oath of office on November 10 in presence of all 732 members of the party’s electoral college.
Bukhari, who was flanked by senior party leaders Peerzada Mansoor Ahmad and Muhammad Ashraf Mir, said that Lone would soon constitute his new team.
56-year-old Lone took over as leadership of Peoples Conference after the assassination of his father Abdul Gani Lone on May 22, 2002 at Eidgah Srinagar.
Lone contested maiden Assembly elections from Handwara in 2014 and defeated his nearest rival by around 5000 votes.
Not only Handwara, party candidate Bashir Ahmad Dar also won from nearby Kupwara Assembly segment, registering the best-ever performance of the party in its electoral history.
Lone, a vocal supporter of J&K’s special status, was detained on August 05, 2019 and was kept in detention for more than a year.
An economics graduate from Cardiff University, Lone was selected for Chevening Fellowship but he opted out of the programme due to his other engagements.
In 2015, he also featured in the ‘Khaleej Times’ list of six Indians who have recently made a mark in their respective fields. The others in the list included Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi and Saina Nehwal (athlete).
Lone is married to Asma Khan Lone, who is a postgraduate in International Relations from Cambridge University. Lone has twin sons who recently secured admission in the London School of Economics and the University of California.
