Abdul Rashid Sheikh alias Engineer Rashid, who has defeated former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, is the only political leader from Kashmir who remains incarcerated for over five years following the revocation of the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir. Rashid has won by a margin of over two lakh votes from Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency.
The 57-year-old politician was imprisoned in 2019 after the National Investigation Agency charged him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Rashid, a former two-time MLA, contested as the Awami Ittehad Party’s (AIP) candidate. He founded the AIP in 2013. His sons, Abrar Rashid and Asrar Rashid, campaigned for him for just a week ahead of fifth phase of polling on May 20. During their campaign, they had urged people to avenge Rashid’s arrest with a vote, “jail ka badla vote se.”
Rashid had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Interestingly, Rashid’s rise in politics has been as spectacular and dramatic as his victory in this general election. Rashid resigned from his job as an engineer in the Public Works Department to contest the Assembly election from Kupwara’s Langate constituency in 2008.
In an interview with this reporter in 2009, Rashid had stated that he had campaigned for just two weeks as an independent candidate back then. According to him, it was the people of Langate who wanted him to represent them in the Assembly. Even at that point in time, he said, he was elected due to popular apathy towards the mainstream political parties. A recent editorial in a Kashmir based local daily, Kashmir Observer, described Rashid as a “symbol of resistance against the status quo”.
This story was originally published in frontline.thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
