After 2009, it’s the second term of Omar Abdullah as Chief Minister; none of the elected members of the Congress took oath today ‘as a mark of protest for the restoration of the Statehood’
A total of five legislators, including Satish Sharma, Sakina Yatoo, Javid Dar, Surinder Kumar Choudhary and Javid Rana, were sworn in for the Council of Ministers at Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC). Mr Choudhary had defeated BJP leader Ravinder Raina from Jammu’s Nowshera constituency.
It’s the second term of Mr. Abdullah as Chief Minister after 2009. He has also earned the distinction of becoming the first and relatively weak Chief Minister of UT of J&K after the Centre ended the region’s ‘special status’ in 2019 and granted more powers to the L-G.
The Union Territory (UT) of J&K has just 10 Ministerial berths, including the Chief Minister. None of the six Congress legislators took the oath.
“None of the elected members took oath before J&K L-G Sinha. It is a mark of our protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not restoring Statehood to J&K,” Ghulam Ahmad Mir, Congress legislative party leader, said.
The Congress, which was an allied partner of the National Conference, has decided not to be part of the new Jammu and Kashmir government. “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,” Congress party’s J-K chief Tariq Hameed Karra said explaining why Congress stayed out of government.
