I am elected, Guv is selected; he can’t decide our fate: Sajad

Srinagar, Nov 30: Peoples Conference Chairman, Sajad Gani Lone, on Friday said the governor should not have dissolved the Assembly, as he “can’t decide the fate” of Jammu and Kashmir.

“I was an elected representative and will contest the polls in future. He (Governor, Satya Pal Malik) has been selected by New Delhi. He should not decide our fate, as he has been here for just a week,” Sajad told a New Delhi-based news channel in an interview.

Sajad claimed that he was the first to stake claim for government formation.

“On that particular day, I was the first one to talk to the governor on phone about government formation,” he claimed. “The governor asked me to send a fax. I don’t know how Mehbooba Mufti got to know. The fax would not go through. Later I sent a letter on WhatsApp.”

Peoples Conference (PC) Chairman’s response came days after the governor dissolved the Assembly, which had put on suspended animation on June 21, on November 21.

The BJP-backed PC and PDP-National Conference-Congress had claimed to have numbers for the government formation.

The governor later said that New Delhi was looking to have Sajad form the government.

“I did not want to be remembered as a dishonest man, so I dissolved the Assembly,” Malik has said.

Sajad also criticised the governor decision to make JK Bank under the RTI.

“Bank is a trust for a depositor. Now anybody can file an RTI to know anybody savings, which is a private matter,” he argued.

About National Conference leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah’s claim that they wanted to form the government to protect the state’s special status, he said, “If I form the government in future, I will issue a white paper on who did 90 per cent erosion of these articles (370 and 35A). I will also issue a white paper on 1987, 1996 and 2002 polls, and who brought gun to Kashmir.”

He said National Conference and PDP did not want any third family to rule the state.

Asked whether he was in politics because of his father, he replied, “I feel humiliated when somebody calls me a dynast. My father was in jail for many years and was interrogated. I was also tortured and put behind bars.”

Criticising PDP and NC for boycotting civic polls, he asked them to stay away from the Assembly elections if they were sincere.