All eyes on NC MP who raised 'Zindabad' to Pakistan

National Conference (NC) leader Mohammad Akbar Lone, who won from north Kashmir’s Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency, is best-known for his provocative statements and creating controversies.

From raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans at a public meeting during recently concluded election campaigning, to hurling abuses at rivals, Lone’s political career is full of controversies.

On 4 October 2011, Lone as Speaker of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly used unprecedented derogatory language in the house against a Shia leader and then-opposition PDP MLA late Molvi Iftikhar Ansari. This shocked the whole assembly and is being discussed in political circles of the Valley till date.

In December 2017, Lone, a three-time MLA, courted another controversy by claiming that BJP and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leaders eat beef and pork together and are “two faces of one coin.” Consumption of beef is highly conflicting to Hindu beliefs, while in the Muslim community, it is pork. The BJP and the PDP were running a coalition government in the state that time.

While taunting the PDP for entering into an alliance with the right-wing party, he had said, “People who have joined hands with the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) are not Muslims. People in Kashmir will boycott those who have joined hands with them (BJP and RSS).”

During the campaigning for Lok Sabha polls in March this year, Lone said that militants should help him in fighting the polls against the BJP. Addressing an election rally in north Kashmir’s frontier Kupwara district, the outspoken NC leader assured that he would continue to speak in the language of militants even after his win.

A week earlier, he said that he will abuse those who hurl abuses at Pakistan and raised slogans in favour of the neighbouring country. The BJP had sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Jammu and Kashmir, seeking to disqualify Lone's candidature from the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat.

With Lone set to take oath as Member of Parliament for the first time in his career, it remains to be seen how he behaves in the supreme legislative body of the country.