Maiden session of J&K Assembly to begin on Nov. 4

The newly constituted Jammu and Kashmir Assembly will convene for a brief session in Srinagar on November 4, starting with the election of the Speaker. Senior National Conference (NC) leader and former minister Abdur Rahim Rather is the front-runner for this role, with the NC reportedly considering offering the Deputy Speaker’s post to the BJP, which won 29 of the 43 seats in the Jammu region in the recent elections, making it the second-largest party in the 90-member House.

According to the provisional calendar issued by the Legislative Assembly secretariat, the election of the Speaker will be held on November 4, followed by an address from Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. On November 5, the Assembly will observe obituary references for former MLAs who passed away since the last session of the erstwhile J&K state Assembly. A discussion on the Motion of Thanks for the LG’s address will begin the next day, with debate continuing on November 8, when Chief Minister Omar Abdullah will deliver his reply.

The Assembly of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir was dissolved in 2018, following the collapse of the PDP-BJP coalition. In 2019, the state was restructured, with Article 370 abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir reorganised into two Union Territories. The recent Assembly elections mark a return to local governance in J&K after ten years, with the NC-Congress coalition securing an absolute majority.