The legislature party of the National Conference has, in a ‘unanimous’ decision, picked party vice president Omar Abdullah as its leader, his father and party chief Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday.
“A meeting was held where everyone unanimously chose Omar Abdullah as their leader,” PTI quoted the ex-Jammu and Kashmir chief minister as saying. He was addressing the media after National Conference MLAs met at its headquarters to elect the leader of the legislature party.
Further, the senior politician stated that the pre-poll alliance partners (National Conference, Congress, CPI-M, Panthers Party) will meet on Friday to take the government formation process forward.
Meanwhile, Omar Abdullah, likely to be the chief minister, expressed his gratitude to the MLAs.
Talks are being held to get the letter of support from the Congress. Also, four independents have expressed their support to the National Conference. Now our number is 42 plus the four independent MLAs. After receiving the letter from the Congress, we will go to the Raj Bhavan to stake claim to form the government,” he added.
The National Conference leader has been chief minister once, from January 2009 to January 2015. In the recent assembly polls, the party won 42 seats under his leadership; he won both seats he contested. The Congress won six seats and the CPI(M) bagged the only seat it got under the alliance.
With 29 seats in the 90-member assembly, the BJP emerged as the second-largest party.
Jammu and Kashmir voted on September 18, 25, and October 1. These were the the region’s first assembly polls since November-December 2014 and the first since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.