Omar Abdullah Takes Oath As First CM Of J&K Union Territory

National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah took oath as the first Chief Minister of the Jammu and Kashmir union territory.

Several leaders including the Leader Of the Opposition In Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav, NCP leader Supriya Sule, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, CPI leader D Raja and DMK leader Kanimozhi took part in the oath-taking ceremony, which was administered by Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha. The event was held at the Sheri-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar.

Interestingly, the Congress, which had a pre-poll alliance with the National Conference, has decided to stay out of the government. In a statement, Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) Chief Tariq Hameed Karra today stated that the party is not joining the Ministry of Jammu and Kashmir government at this stage.

"Congress has strongly demanded from the Centre to restore Statehood to J&K, besides the Prime Minister has time and again in public meetings promised the same. But the Statehood has not been restored to J&K. We are unhappy therefore we are not joining the Ministry at the moment, JKPCC Chief added and said Congress Party shall continue to fight for the restoration of Statehood," the statement from the JKPCC said.

Apart from Omar Abdullah, Sakina Itoo, Javeed Rana, Surinder Choudhary, Javeed Dar, and Satish Sharma took oath as ministers in the new J&K government.

Before the swearing-in ceremony, Omar Abdullah said, "I have some strange distinctions. I was the last chief minister to serve a full six-year term. Now I'll be the first chief minister of the Union territory of J&K. The last distinction, as in the one of serving six years, I'm quite happy about...I hope that the status of a union territory is a temporary one. We look forward to working in cooperation with the government of India to resolve the people's problems and the best way to do that would be to start by restoring statehood to J&K."

This is the first elected government in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 and the reorganization of the former state into two Union Territories.

Omar was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile state from 2009 to 2015 and was Union Minister of State for External Affairs in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA government from 2001 to 2002.

Jammu and Kashmir had been under Presidential rule since 2018 after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) withdrew support from the coalition government led by Mehbooba Mufti's People's Democratic Party (PDP).

In the recently concluded polls, the Congress-National Conference alliance won 48 seats, with the National Conference (NC) securing 42 seats and Congress winning six.