Omar Abdullah ran and won the Assembly elections in both Budgam and Ganderbal. He had defeated the PDP’s Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi by around 19,000 votes in the former and Bashir Ahmad Mir by more than 10,000 votes in the latter.
Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir, declared on Monday that he would be keeping the Ganderbal seat and leaving the Budgam Assembly seat.
“I will always be appreciative of Budgam residents’ vote for me. I apologize, but I had to give up one of the two seats due to the restrictions. The Chief Minister wrote on X, “I pledge to the people of Budgam that I will always regard myself as their representative and that I will work for them over the next five years to resolve their problems to the best extent possible.”
Former Assembly Speaker and Pro-tem Speaker Mubarak Gul had earlier informed the assembly that Omar Abdullah had resigned as Budgam MLA and had chosen to serve as the Assembly’s representative for the Ganderbal seat.
Omar Abdullah ran and won the Assembly elections in both Budgam and Ganderbal. He had defeated PDP candidate Aga Syed Muntazir Mehdi by around 19,000 votes in the former and Bashir Ahmad Mir by more than 10,000 votes in the latter.
The newly elected MLAs were also sworn in and given their affirmations by the Pro-tem Speaker on Monday afternoon.
Omar Abdullah, the Leader of the House and Chief Minister, was the first to take the oath. To the surprise of his critics, who frequently claimed that he was not familiar with the language, he took his oath in Kashmiri.
The oath was taken in English by Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary, who represents Nowshera in the Jammu area.
The six years that J&K was without an Assembly came to an end with the MLAs’ oath-taking ceremony.
Six members of the Congress, one from each of the CPI-M and Aam Aadmi Parties (AAP), and six independent MLAs back the 42-member NC. This amounts to 56 MLAs in total, although the simple majority of a 95-member Assembly (90 elected and 5 nominated) would only be 48.
However, with Omar Abdullah resigning from the Budgam seat, the NC’s strength would now fall to 41.