Omar Abdullah vacates Budgam Assembly seat, retains Ganderbal; J&K MLAs administered oath

The newly elected members of the J&K Assembly were administered oath on October 21 by Pro-tem Speaker Mubarak Gul, with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah taking the pledge in the Kashmiri language

The newly elected members of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly were administered oath on Monday (October 21, 2024) by Pro-tem Speaker Mubarak Gul, with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah taking the pledge in the Kashmiri language.

The Chief Minister won both the Budgam and Ganderbal Assembly constituencies in the recently held elections. He vacated the Budgam seat and retained the Ganderbal constituency, the pro-tem speaker announced in the House on Monday. The Ganderbal seat is considered an Abdullah family stronghold.

The 54-year-old leader was an MLA from Ganderbal from 2009 to 2014 during his first tenure as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

With this, the strength of the National Conference in the 95-member House has been reduced to 41 but the party still enjoys a comfortable majority with the support of six Congress MLA, five Independents and one MLA each of the AAP and the CPI(M). The BJP with 29 seats is the second-largest party - its best-ever performance in J&K.

Omar Abdullah, son of Farooq Abdullah and his British wife Mollie Abdullah, had often faced criticism for not being able to speak his native language.

While the third generation politician from the Abdullah family is fluent in English, his fluency in vernaculars like Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri was poor at the start of his political career in the late 1990s.

However, during his first tenure as Chief Minister from 2009 to 2014, Mr. Omar Abdullah took lessons to improve his speaking skills in these three languages. And on Monday, he took the oath as MLA in Kashmiri.