AFTER having initially declared that he would not contest the Assembly elections, National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah filed his nomination from a second constituency on Thursday.
Apart from the family bastion of Ganderbal, Omar will be contesting from Budgam in Central Kashmir. In the last Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, in 2014, Omar had contested and won from the Beerwah Assembly seat adjoining Budgam.
Filing his nomination papers from Ganderbal on Wednesday, Omar had made an emotional appeal to voters in Kashmiri, holding out his cap and saying “my honour is in your hands”.
For Omar, a win is important not just because the NC, which is fighting the elections in alliance with the Congress, hopes to form the next government in J&K, but also because of his loss in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Conscious of how his decision to stand from two constituencies would be seen, Omar said Thursday while filing his nomination papers from Budgam that it should not be seen as a sign of weakness. “Contesting two seats is a show of strength of the National Conference. There is a wave in favour of the NC and we hope that on the day that votes are counted, we are successful.”
The Ganderbal Assembly seat was earlier represented by NC founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and NC president Farooq Abdullah – Omar’s grandfather and father, respectively. However, in his first election from the constituency in 2002, Omar had lost from here to the PDP. In 2008, he had won from Ganderbal, but in 2014, had moved to the Beerwah Assembly seat, as the party had a strong candidate in Budgam.
Both Beerwah and Budgam Assembly segments fall within the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat post-delimitation, from where Omar contested and lost in the recent general elections. NC sources said that one key reason for picking Budgam and not Beerwah as the second Assembly seat for Omar was that in the Lok Sabha polls, he had a lead from Budgam while he trailed in Beerwah.
Omar lost from Baramulla in the Lok Sabha polls to the Awami Ittihad Party’s Engineer Rashid, who contested as an Independent from behind bars.
The Budgam Assembly seat has been represented in the past by Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, the NC’s newly elected MP from Srinagar.
Another reason for Omar picking Budgam is the demographic make-up of the Budgam seat. While the constituency is dominated by Shia Muslims, the sect remains divided between two main families who are related to each other – that of Aga Ruhullah and that of Aga Syed Hassan Muntazir. The PDP has fielded Aga Syed from Budgam.
The NC is hoping that Omar will consolidate the Shia and Sunni votes and win.
On Thursday, Omar said that Ruhullah has taken upon himself the responsibility of ensuring that his community votes for the NC vice-president.
Reiterating that the J&K Assembly was not what it used to be, which he had earlier cited as the reason he would not contest, the former Chief Minister said: “We have to wage this battle to restore our dignity, our honour and our identity taken away by Delhi.”
In a hint at the Jamaat-e-Islami, Omar said there will be many obstacles in this fight. “They will try to weaken our voice by using people who have remembered democracy after 35 years. They stayed away from elections all this time and are now putting their faith in elections again. This is good, but the BJP will try its best to divide us. And in this election, we have to resolve not to let our voices and our votes be fragmented.”
‘Freedom chacha’ vs Omar
Jailed cleric Sarjan Ahmad Wagay a.k.a Sarjan Barkati, whose nomination papers from the Zainapora Assembly seat were rejected last week, on Thursday filed his candidature from two seats, Ganderbal and Beerwah. Barkati’s daughter Sugra filed the nomination papers on his behalf.
A central figure in the 2016 protest rallies in South Kashmir in the aftermath of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, Barkati had earned himself the moniker of “freedom chacha”. He was arrested last year in connection with alleged irregularities connected to a fund-raiser.
