Last year Rattanpuri took premature retirement from his services at Radio Kashmir Srinagar to join the National Conference and contest the state Assembly Elections.
He bagged over 7000 votes but finished third, with PDP’s Syed Bashir emerging as the winner. Rattanpuri’s loss, however, proved to a blessing in disguise for him as he ended up in a bigger house.
Rattanpuri’s proximity to National Conference has been an open secret for a long time. During 2002 elections he was one of the senior members in Omar Abdullah’s media management and would escort media persons tothe venues of public meetings off and on. He is believed to have gone on leave for several months to work for the party. Many believe Rattanpuri was the architect of a poster campaign against PDP president Mehbooba Mufti in 2004 after Mufit had removed the veil of an alleged female mobile voter in Srinagar during 2004 parliamentary elections. The posters portrayed Mehbooba as an arrogant leader removing the veil of a woman voter.
During his broadcasting career, Rattanpuri served on may positions in Radio including the producer of the popular current affairs programme Shehrbeen. Rattanpuri hails from Rattanpur village of Pulwama district. Now NC had two leaders from south Kashmir in parliament – Dr Mehboobaq Beigh in Lok Sabha and Rattanpuri in Rajya Sabha.
Ghulam Nabi Rattanpuri
The seat had fallen vacant following Farooq Abdullah’s resignation on May 16 after he won the Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar. Opposition People’s Democratic Party did not field any candidate as they lacked the numbers against the NC-Congress coalition.
