Omar Abdullah will run for the LS seat in Baramulla, north Kashmir

The National Conference (NC) announced Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister and vice president, as its candidate for the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency in north Kashmir on Friday in a calculated political move.

Additionally, the party said that Aga Syed Ruhulla, a prominent NC politician from Srinagar, who is now represented by party chairman Dr. Farooq Abdullah, will be fielded.

At a news conference in Srinagar, Dr. Abdullah announced that Omar Abdullah will be taking over as the current Member of Parliament for Mohammad Akbar Lone. On May 20, there will be voting for the position.

In doing so, the NC has declared its candidacies for each of the three Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir; for the two Jammu seats, it is endorsing Congress candidates. The three candidates for the PDP, a member of the INDIA bloc, have also been revealed. The contender for the Anantnag constituency in south Kashmir is PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti.

The primary contenders in Baramulla this time around will be Sajad Lone of the People’s Conference, NC’s Omar, and PDP’s Fayaz Ahmad Mir—a former member of the Rajya Sabha.

Attending the news conference as well, Omar issued a challenge to the BJP, asking it to run its own candidates in Kashmir rather than supporting proxies. He was presumably alluding to a reported meeting between Peoples Conference president Sajad Lone and Apni Party chairman Altaf Bukhari, along with a senior BJP official.

Omar said that his candidacy from North Kashmir should come as no surprise. “I represented Beerwah, the last Assembly seat, which is also in the north,” he said.

The prominent Shia leader Aga Syed Ruhulla Mehdi would run from the Srinagar seat, according to Dr. Farooq Abdullah.

It is noteworthy to note that Omar said he would not run in the Assembly elections unless J&K’s statehood was restored after the abrogation of Article 370 and the state’s demotion to a union territory in 2019.

The NC has already said that Mian Altaf, a well-known Gujjar spiritual leader, would be their nominee for the Anantnag seat in south Kashmir.