Srinagar, Oct 10: Omar Abdullah was today unanimously elected leader of the NC legislature party paving the way for him to become the next chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced after the NC legislature party meeting. Leaders of the pre-poll alliance partners will meet on Friday to begin the process of government formation in the Union territory.
“A meeting of the legislature party was held where everyone unanimously chose Omar Abdullah as its leader,” the National Conference president said.
NC sources said choosing Omar as the LP chairman means Omar is the NC’s CM candidate. “Omar will get the letter of support from Congress now and meet LG in a day or two to stake a claim on government formation with all 49 legislators on board,” they said.
An NC leader present in the meeting said the NC-Congress combine will stake a claim on government formation by Saturday. “Tomorrow is the Congress meeting and let’s get their support first,” he said.
He said in the meeting all newly elected members vowed to stay united and to work for peoples’ welfare to fulfill the aspirations of people who gave NC a majority in the recently concluded polls.
Earlier today, all the newly elected MLAs of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference met at party headquarters Nawa-i-Subah to elect their leader. The JKNC legislature party leaders Jammu and Kashmir Assembly is most likely to be appointed as the Chief Minister of the Union territory.
The meeting was convened by JKNC president Farooq Abdullah.
Senior Abdullah further said a meeting of the pre-poll alliance partners would be held on Friday to take the process of government formation.
It is important to note that the National Conference has emerged as the single largest party in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly assembly polls with 42 seats. The NC alliance partners Congress and CPI(M) have won six seats and one seat respectively. The pre-poll alliance partners have a comfortable majority in the 95-member House.
Meanwhile, NC Vice President, Omar Abdullah, has said that he did not expect the restoration of Article 370 from Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the centre. The immediate priority of the next NC-Congress government would be the restoration of statehood.
“None of us are foolish enough, nor did we try and convince the voters that we were going to work on our 370 agenda with this current (Modi) government in Delhi. We know that you are not going to get it back from the government that took it away. So set that aside for now,” Abdullah told a TV channel.
The restoration of special status was one of the key pre-poll manifesto promises of NC, which eventually ended up winning elections in the Union Territory, along with its alliance partner, the Congress.
