With Omar Abdullah set to don the Chief Minister's hat and in the absence of PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti, who decided against contesting the Assembly polls, the floor of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has been left open for a handful of six opposition members from Kashmir and a 29 member saffron brigade from Jammu region to play the role of an effective opposition.

The opposition benches will be occupied by the 29 BJP MLAs along with three legislators of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peoples' Conference Chief Sajad Lone, and two other independent legislators from Langate and Shopian.

Since 2002, leaders belonging to the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party have occupied the chair of the leader of the opposition.

However, this time when Omar Abdullah occupies the chair of the leader of the house in the assembly, he will face a BJP leader in front of him as leader of the opposition.

BJP is returning to the opposition benches after enjoying a short stint in power for almost three years (between March 2015 and June 2018).

Though BJP legislators always occupied the opposition benches, this will be the first time in the history of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly that a BJP leader will be occupying the post of leader of the opposition.

So far the BJP has not convened a meeting to formally elect the leader of the legislative party in the house.

When PDP-BJP formed an alliance government in March 2015 Omar Abdullah, with a strength of 15 members in the house remained leader of the opposition. Mehbooba Mufti also served as leader of the opposition at the beginning of her political career before founding PDP in 1999.

It is for the first time that Kashmir Valley will have only six members in the opposition camp.In 2002, when Mufti Mohd Sayeed formed an alliance government with the congress party the National Conference had 28 members in the opposition, majority of them hailed from Kashmir. In 2008  PDP occupied the opposition benches with 21 members.