J&K Polls: Finally, Omar Abdullah decides to join fray

SRINAGAR: Breaking his own pledge of not contesting an Assembly election as long as Jammu and Kashmir remains a Union Territory, former chief minister and National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah has agreed to join the fray.

He will be NC’s candidate for Ganderbal, the constituency he, his father Farooq Abdullah and grandfather and legendary Kashmiri leader Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, have represented five times in the past, in 1977, 1983, 1987, 1996 and 2008.

Abdullah, chief minister of the erstwhile state of J&K between 2008 and 2014, had lost to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) by 2,870 votes in the Assembly poll that was affected by a boycott call given by the separatists. In 2014, the last Assembly elections, Abdullah’s NC had wrested the seat by 597 votes.

Omar Abdullah had recently reiterated that he will not be joining the fray until J&K stays a UT. Days before the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced to hold the J&K Assembly elections in three phases-September 18 and 25 and October 1-early this month, the Union Home Ministry issued an order that vested more powers in the UT’s Lieutenant Governor including for taking decisions on matters related to police and all-India service officers.

Earlier this week, several speakers at a NC rally held in Ganderbal had urged Omar Abdullah to reconsider his decision of staying away from the poll till J&K was reconstituted as a state. On Tuesday, the party released its second list of candidates for the second phase of Assembly elections as per which he will contest elections from Ganderbal.

He has not yet said what made him change his mind, but his aides have claimed that he was under “tremendous pressure” from the NC rank and file to reconsider his earlier decision and join the fray.

Meanwhile, Iltija Mufti, daughter of former chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, on Tuesday made her electoral debut by filing the nomination papers for the Bijbehara constituency of southern Anantnag district. The party sources said that 35-year-old Iltija who has been working as her mother’s media adviser for a few years, was asked to join the fray as Mufti continues to be adamant on not contesting an Assembly election as long as J&K remains a UT.

Iltija has been chosen to join the fray from a constituency which is regarded as fully secure. Her mother was elected to the Assembly of the erstwhile state of J&K for the first time from Bijbehara in 1996 on an Indian National Congress ticket. Being the Muftis home constituency, Bijbehara is a traditional bastion of the PDP. It has been represented from 1999 to 2018 by senior party leader and the Muftis’ confidante Abdur Rehman Veeri who has been shifted to Anantnag East.