National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah announced on Tuesday, October 8, that Omar Abdullah, will be the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir as the Congress-NC alliance leads on 52 seats while the counting of votes is underway.
The veteran leader made the announcement as he addressed his supporters. Early trends indicated that the alliance would sweep Jammu and Kashmir’s first polls in 10 years.
The BJP and PDP are ahead in 27 and 2 seats respectively.
Omar Abdullah’s leadership
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and vice president of the National Conference (NC), Omar Abdullah contested the elections from the Ganderbal constituency.
Omar Abdullah served as the chief minister of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state from 2009 to 2015 and was also the president of his party. He is a three-time Lok Sabha MP and has represented the Assembly constituencies of Ganderbal (2008-2014) and Beerwah (2014-2019). He lost the 2002 Assembly elections to Qazi Mohammad Afzal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Ganderbal.
No election in J&K in the last 10 years
J&K has been without an elected government since June 2018 when the BJP pulled out of the Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government.
The state came under the Governor’s rule and the then-governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the Assembly.
On August 5, 2019, Article 370 was abrogated and J&K was bifurcated into two union territories of J&K and Ladakh.
(This is a breaking story. More details will be added as they emerge.)
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