Staging a comeback with a ‘thumping’ majority in his kitty, National Conference (NC) Vice President Omar Abdullah is all set to become the first Chief Minister of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the month-long Assembly elections, held for the first time after the Abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A, 54-year-old Omar led the alliance partners to victory winning a clear majority of 48 seats in the 90-member house.
The NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah said the verdict was proof that the people of Jammu and Kashmir were against the abrogation of Article 370.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite winning the highest tally of 29 Assembly seats in its strong bastion of Jammu, is left stranded staring at the prospect of occupying the Opposition benches. Meanwhile, J&K BJP Chief Ravindra Raina lost his seat in the Nowshera Assembly segment. He was defeated by Surinder Choudhary of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference by a margin of over 7000 votes.
The party won 10 out of 11 seats from Jammu district, five from Kathua, four each from Udhampur and Doda, three from Samba, two from Reasi, and one from Rajouri. The party, however, failed to open its account from Kashmir Valley. The party had campaigned aggressively promising a stable government with a ‘Hindu’ Chief Minister at the helm of affairs.
The BJP’s gamble to grant Scheduled Tribe status to Paharis in the region failed to improve its tally. All the candidates who joined the BJP failed to win any seat from the twin frontier districts of Rajouri and Poonch.
Despite running a high-voltage campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP Chief JP Nadda, Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and several other star campaigners the party also failed to achieve its desired goal of winning at least 35 Assembly seats in the region.
Omar Abdullah, who tasted defeat at the hands of Sheikh Abdul Rashid, Chairman of the Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) during Lok Sabha polls, won from both the Assembly segments of Ganderbal and Budgam in Kashmir.
Several old horses of the regional party namely Justice (Retd) Hasnain Masoodi, former MP, Former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, party general secretary and former cabinet minister Ali Mohd Sagar, and former speaker Mubarak Gul also won their respective seats. Salman Sagar, son of Ali Mohd Sagar also won the seat contesting on the NC ticket from the Hazratbal seat. The former Mayor of Srinagar Municipal Corporation,
Junaid Azim Mattu, lost the elections from the Zadibal Assembly segment. He was defeated by Omar Abdullah’s close aide Tanvir Sadiq. Mattu stood third in the tally. Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir APNI party also lost the polls from Channpora at the hands of JKNC candidate Mushtaq Guroo.
Congress, however, barely won six seats, five from the Kashmir valley and only one seat from Rajouri in the Jammu division. Peoples Democratic Party also performed badly in the polls winning only three seats from Kashmir valley. Iltija Mufti, who contested from Srigufwara Bijbehara, was defeated by NC candidate Bashir Ahmed Shah Veeri by a margin of over 9000 votes.
Party leader Waheed Ur Rehman Parra won the Pulwama Assembly segment while Rafiq Ahmed Naik won from the Tral seat. Another PDP leader Mir Mohd Fayaz defeated the Provincial President of JKNC Naseer Aslam Wani from Kupwara. Khursheed Ahmed Sheikh, brother of Sheikh Abdul Rashid won the Langate Assembly segment defeating Peoples Conference candidate Irfan Sultan Pandithpuri.
A total number of three women candidates successfully contested the elections. Two JKNC candidates, Shamima Firdous from Habbakadal and Sakeena Masood from DH Pora won the polls while a BJP candidate from Kishtwar Shagun Parihar won the Kishtwar assembly segment by a margin of 521 votes. She defeated former MoS Home Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo.
The National Conference picked up seven seats from the Jammu region. Six among them were reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates for the first time in the history of J&K Assembly polls.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate Mehraj Malik also managed to win one seat of the Doda Assembly segment defeating a rival candidate of the BJP.
On the other hand, Peoples Conference Chairman Sajad Lone also managed to win a lone Assembly seat of Handwara by a wafer-thin margin of over 600 votes. CPI(M) leader Mohd Yusuf Tarigami defeated independent candidate Sayar Ahmed Reshim supported by the banned Jamaat-e-Islami from the Kulgam assembly segment.
Reflecting on the Assembly poll results, National Conference President Dr. Farooq Abdullah told reporters gathered at his residence in Srinagar, “Omar Abdullah will be the chief minister”.
“The people have given their verdict and proven that the decisions taken on August 5, 2019 are not acceptable to them,” he said. “I am thankful to everyone that the people participated in the polls and did so freely. I am grateful to God for the results.”
Ram Madhav, who was made in charge of Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir in a post on X said,” In Jammu, our cadres ensured a great victory winning the highest ever number of seats. Congratulations to NC for a big win in Kashmir while the piggybacked partner drew almost 0 in Jammu. Salute to the people for a memorable mandate”.
Sounding a word of caution, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said the Centre should take a lesson from the decisive verdict of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls and “not meddle” in the affairs of the upcoming National Conference-Congress government.
She congratulated the National Conference leadership on its victory and said her party would play the role of a constructive opposition.
“I congratulate the NC leadership for its spectacular win. I also want to congratulate the people of J-K for voting for a stable government and not a hung assembly because the people faced several problems especially after August 5, 2019. A stable and strong government is very important for the redressal of those problems,” Mufti told reporters here.
The performance of the Congress leaders in the Jammu region can be gauged from the fact that most of its senior leaders, including two working presidents, Raman Bhall and Tara Chand, a former Pradesh Congress president Vikar Rasool Wani and several ministers were humbled by the BJP rivals.
In the Jammu region, the Congress has managed to win only the Rajouri seat as against a total of five seats in 2014. The Congress’s Iftikar Ahmed defeated his nearest rival, BJP’s Vibodh Gupta, by a margin of 1,404 votes after securing 28,923 votes.
The NC did not field any candidate from the constituency according to the seat-sharing agreement. However, the Congress managed to win five seats in Kashmir where former minister Peerzada Mohammad Syed defeated the PDP’s Mehboob Beg by a margin of 1,686 votes and former MLA Nizam-uddin Bhat won the Bandipora seat for the party.
Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress president Tariq Hameed Karra (Central Shalteng), AICC general secretary G A Mir (Dooru) and Irfan Hafiz Lone (Wagoora-Kreeri) won their respective seats.
