After securing a landslide victory in the assembly polls held after a decade in Jammu and Kashmir, the NC legislative party will meet today to finalise their leader in the J&K assembly.
Party president Dr Farooq Abdullah said that his son Omar would be the next Chief Minister of the UT.
During vote counting on Tuesday, NC emerged as the single largest party with 42 seats, requiring only four more seats to form the government. Their alliance partners Congress won six and CPIM won one seat, which is well over the majority mark.
“The National Conference legislature party will meet today at half past 12 to elect their leader,” said Omar.
“Then we will go to the Raj Bhavan to stake the claim for government formation and ask the LG to fix a time for swearing in,” Omar Abdullah said, adding, “I hope the new government is in place in the next few days.”.
When asked about Omar’s statement that the alliance will decide the chief minister, the NC president said, “Whatever I have decided, only that will happen.”
Farooq Abdullah said the NC-Congress government would aim to minimise the differences between the two regions of the Union Territory and to build confidence among the Hindus.
In an apparent reference to the BJP, he said, “We have to minimise the differences they have created between Jammu and Kashmir. Our endeavour should be that the Hindus there have this confidence in us that we will think about them in the same manner as about Kashmir.”
“We will not differentiate between the two. So what if they did not vote (for us)? We must solve their problems,” Abdullah told reporters here.
Omar Abdullah, during multiple media interactions on Wednesday, said hoping for the restoration of Article 370 from the very people who snatched it would be “foolish,” but his party would keep the issue alive and continue to raise it.
“Our political stand will not change. We have never said that we will remain silent on Article 370 or that Article 370 is not an issue for us now,” he said.
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