Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah gave up his Budgam assembly seat on Monday to keep the Ganderbal constituency, which his family favours. It was announced by pro-tem speaker Mubarak Gul in the J&K assembly. Omar Abdullah, aged 54, had contested for two parliamentary seats, Budgam and Ganderbal, in newly concluded state assembly elections. In Budgam, he performed very well and defeated the candidate of PDP, Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi, by a handsome margin of 18485 votes. At the same time, in the Ganderbal constituency, he trounced PDP’s Bashir Ahmed Mir by 10774 votes.
Ganderbal is of great importance to Omar Abdullah in terms of persona and politics owing to his family’s constant representation of the region. His father, Farooq Abdullah, and grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah, the founder of the National Conference (NC), had represented the seat earlier. He had also been an MLA for Ganderbal constituency from 2009- 2014, when he was chief minister for the first time.
National conference loses one seat in the 95-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly by giving up the Budgam seat; its tally comes down to 41. However, the party still enjoys a comfortable majority with the support of six Congress MLAs, five Independents, one AAP MLA, and one CPI(M) MLA.
Earlier in the day, Gul, the pro-tem speaker, administered the oath of office to newly elected members of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly; Omar Abdullah took the oath in the Kashmiri language. This decision is important because, in the past, Abdullah was questioned over his lack of fluency in his first language while the man had a good grasp of the English language. Over the years, Abdullah has made conscious efforts to enhance his speaking skills in this language as well as in the other two languages, Kashmiri, Urdu, and Hindi.
Among the new assembly are 51 freshman MLAs, and there is the 29-year-old Shagun Parihar of BJP, the youngest one and 80-year-old Abdul Rahim Rather.
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