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| Omar leads 4-member NC team to participate in oath-taking ceremony | | Farooq Abdullah getting Non-conventional Energy | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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.
Informed sources revealed to this newspaper that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh spoke to Dr Abdullah and informed him that he was being inducted as a Cabinet Minister, alongwith 58 others, in his Council of Ministers in the UPA Government on Thursday. According to these sources, Dr Abdullah was also informed that portfolio of Non-conventional Energy had been reserved for him. While 19 Cabinet Ministers, including former J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, had taken oath in the first round of government formation on May 22 last, 14 more, including Farooq Abdullah, are being sworn in at 1130 hours on Thursday. Besides, seven Ministers of State with Independent charge and 38 Ministers of State are also taking oath tomorrow.
Sources said that Prime Minister also called his former Ministerial colleague from J&K, Prof Saif-ud-din Soz, in the afternoon today and informed him that he was not being inducted as a Minister this time due to “myriad of coalition constraints”. The fourth and the last aspirant from J&K, Dr Karan Singh, had learned a day before his wife’s death earlier this week that he could not be accommodated as two former J&K Chief Ministers, Azad and Farooq, were already there “on personal recommendations of Mrs Sonia Gandhi”.
While Dr Abdullah is an elected Lok Sabha member from Srinagar, Dr Karan Singh, Azad and Soz are all members of Rajya Sabha.
Dr Abdullah had been elected uncontested in his first election for Lok Sabha in the mid-term Parliamentary elections from Srinagar in 1980. However, a month before his father and then Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah’s death in September 1982, he had been inducted as Minister of Health in the state government. In the wake of Sheikh Abdullah’s death, Dr Abdullah was installed as J&K Chief Minister on September 9th, 1982.
In 1983, Dr Abdullah’s NC won majority of seats in the Assembly election and he took his second oath as Chief Minister. However, he was dismissed as head of the government and replaced by the NC rebel, Ghulam Mohammad Shah, with the support of 12 of NC’s MLAs and 26 MLAs of Congress. In 1987, Dr Abdullah took his third oath as J&K Chief Minister when he headed an NC-Congress coalition which held office for less than three years. In the first Assembly elections in October 1996, Dr Abdullah’s NC was returned with nearly two-third majority and he took his oath as Chief Minister for the fourth time. This time, he completed full term of six years as Chief Minister.
Dr Abdullah, who enjoys the distinction of having never lost any election, did not contest in 2002 when his son, Omar Abdullah, was launched as NC’s Chief Ministerial candidate but the party lost the power to the PDP-Congress coalition.
In 2008 Assembly elections, Dr Abdullah contested from Hazratbal and Sonwar segments in the capital city and was returned from both. He later resigned as MLA and successfully contested elections for Rajya Sabha in February this year. He again resigned and jumped into the fray as NC’s candidate from Srinagar-Budgam in the Lok Sabha election in which he defeated PDP’s Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari with a margin of over 30,000 votes. Thus, he has now for the first time become a Minister in the Union government.
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