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| Farooq Abdullah getting Non-conventional Energy Ahmed Ali Fayyaz | | Omar leads 4-member NC team to participate in oath-taking ceremony | | Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, May 27: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today left for New Delhi and arrived in the Union Capital alongwith three senior leaders of his party to participate in the swearing-in ceremony that will make the National Conference (NC) patriarch, Dr Farooq Abdullah, a Union Minister for the first time in his 29-year-long political career. Portfolio of Non-conventional Energy has been reserved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the high-profile politician who has earlier served as Jammu & Kashmir’s Chief Minister for four terms spanning over 11 years.
Winding up a hectic schedule of official meetings, inaugurations, foundation stone laying ceremonies and inspection of offices in Baramulla and Sumbal areas in North Kashmir, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah skipped his scheduled visit to Bandipore and left for New Delhi to participate in his father Farooq Abdullah’s oath-taking at Rashtrapati Bhavan. He, however, kept his programme of meeting party workers at the former NC MLA Mohammad Sayeed Akhoon’s house near Zakoora and asked them to leave no stone unturned in ensuring the victory of NC’s candidate Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamal in the polling for by-election in Hazratbal Assembly segment on June 3rd next.
NC has launched hectic campaigning after finding that PDP’s Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari had scored a lead of 2,000 votes over NC’s Dr Farooq Abdullah in Hazratbal segment in the polling that took place for Lok Sabha on May 7th. It was Dr Kamal’s good-luck that the polling for Assembly by-election had been deferred in Hazratbal segment due to acceptance of his deficient nomination papers in controversial circumstances by the Returning Officer.
In the main Assembly elections in December 2008, Dr Abdullah had defeated PDP’s Asiya Naqash with a margin of over 4,200 votes in Hazratbal segment.
NC is reasonably disturbed over Ansari’s lead of 2,000 votes in Hazratbal in the Lok Sabha elections but relieved over the fact that PDP this time has not a Shia candidate in the fray. In the situation of the separatists sponsored boycott to elections, Shia vote matters in several segments in Srinagar, Budgam, Bandipore and Baramulla districts as a good number of voters from this community has been always participating in the elections.
Chief Minister flew to the Union capital this evening alongwith senior NC leader and Speaker in Legislative Assembly, Mohammad Akbar Lone, Minister of Finance and Law, Abdul Rahim Rather and Minister of Industries, Surjit Singh Salathia. Highly placed sources told Early Times that two more of NC’s MLAs and former Ministers, Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan and Sakeena Itoo, would be reaching New Delhi and joining their senior colleagues after the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow to felicitate Dr Abdullah. Omar and his colleagues met Dr Abdullah at his residence and felicitated him on his induction into the Union Cabinet.
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