NC chooses Omar Abdullah as leader, set to be new CM of J&K

Srinagar, Oct 10 (IANS) National Conference (NC) Vice President Omar Abdullah is set to be the new Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir after being unanimously elected as the leader of the legislature party.

The decision to elect Omar Abdullah as the leader was taken in a meeting held at the NC headquarters at the ‘Nawa-e-Subha’ complex in Srinagar city on Thursday. And the party will soon stake its claim to the UT's top post.

NC President Dr Farooq Abdullah, Vice President Omar Abdullah, senior leaders of the party and recently elected MLAs were present in the meeting.

Farooq Abdullah had already told the media immediately after the election results for the J&K Legislative Assembly were announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI) that Omar Abdullah would be the new chief minister of J&K.

Omar has told some reporters that the Assembly election results proved that the majority of people in J&K have not endorsed the revocation of J&K’s special status.

He said that had the people endorsed the revocation then the BJP and not the NC-Congress alliance would have got a majority in the Assembly polls.

The NC Vice President said on Wednesday that the first business of the J&K cabinet would be to pass a resolution for the restoration of statehood. “It should be the first business of the cabinet to pass a resolution asking the Centre to restore statehood to J&K. The Chief Minister should then travel to Delhi with the resolution and ask the government to restore our statehood."

He said this was promised by the Prime Minister, Home Minister and others. "Nowhere did they say that statehood would be restored only to a government that has BJP members,” he said. The NC leader added that his party would not give up its demand for the restoration of Article 370. “Our stand on this will never change,” he asserted.

This will be the second time for Omar Abdullah to become the Chief Minister. He was first elected in 2009 as Chief Minister of J&K state at the age of 38 years. Now, he will be the CM of the J&K UT.

The NC has won 42, BJP 29, Congress six, PDP three, CPI(M) one, Peoples Conference one, Aam Aadmi Party one and Independents seven seats in the 98-member J&K Legislative Assembly. The Lt. Governor will nominate five members on the recommendations of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

Among the nominated members, two will be women, two from the Kashmiri Pandit displaced community, at least one of these two will be a woman, and one from the West Pakistan refugees.

As per the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 and J&K Reorganisation Amendment Act 2013, all the five nominated members will have voting rights in government formation.

Meanwhile, Choudhary Akram, who won the election from the Surankote Assembly seat in Poonch district as an Independent candidate, met Omar Abdullah on Thursday and decided to join the NC.