Fifty four-year-old Omar Abdullah is all set to take oath as the first chief minister of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday. His party, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference recorded a historic victory winning 42 Assembly seats in the maiden assembly elections held after the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A in 2019.
This will be Omar Abdullah's second term in office. However, this time, he will be governing a Union Territory without the special status that Jammu and Kashmir once held. He remained Chief Minister from January 2009 till October 2014.
The oath-taking ceremony will take place at the Sher-e-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) on the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar, where elaborate security and other arrangements have been made.
The swearing-in ceremony is expected to witness several prominent leaders from the INDIA bloc, a coalition of opposition parties, in attendance. Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav and Supriya Sule from the NCP have already reached Srinagar to attend the swearing-in ceremony. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi are also expected to attend the oath ceremony.
The National Conference has also extended invitations to the top brass of the DMK, Shiromani Akali Dal, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, MK Stalin, Uddhav Thackeray, Sharad Pawar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal, and D Raja.
Meanwhile, speculations were rife about the list of probable members of the Council of Ministers. The NC is expected to induct a congress nominee in the council along with Independent legislators from the Jammu region to balance the regional aspirations.
However, The meeting of the Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs to elect the State legislature party leader of the State will be held on Wednesday. Nayab Singh Saini, who replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as the Chief Minister of Haryana in March is likely to be the CM choice. He was the BJP's chief ministerial face in the state Assembly polls, and.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav are the central observers for the election of the state legislature party leader in Haryana. It is learnt that Shah and Yadav were named central observers after reports of rebellion by Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh and nine of his Ahirwal loyalist MLAs.
The minister, however, clarified that he was "solidly" behind the BJP. BJP experimented by naming one of the senior-most party members Union Minister Rajnath Singh to iron out the heavy factional differences in Rajasthan after the Assembly elections.
The meeting, which will be held in Panchkula, will elect the state legislature party leader, Haryana BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli said. The state legislature party leader will be the next chief minister. On Tuesday, Saini held meetings with senior officers making preparations for the BJP's big event. Hectic lobbying for ministerial berths have been doing the rounds and names of probables shall be shared to shared party high command on Wednesday.
The oath-taking ceremony of the new Haryana Cabinet will take place at Panchkula's Parade Ground in Sector 5 on Thursday and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend. The BJP secured a third term in the Assembly polls in Haryana, results of which were declared on October 8. It won 48 seats against the Congress' 37 in the 90-member Assembly in the state.
