J&K polls: Omar Abdullah to contest elections from Ganderbal constituency

National Conference (NC) Vice President Omar Abdullah will contest the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) Assembly elections from the Ganderbal constituency, the party announced on Tuesday.

Earlier, Omar had said he would not participate in the Assembly polls. His name appeared in the NC’s list of 32 candidates for Phases II and  III released on Tuesday.

Ganderbal will vote, along with 25 other seats, in the second phase of the Assembly polls on September 25. The third phase, on October 1, will see polling in 40 seats.

Omar represented Ganderbal from 2009 to 2014 when he was the chief minister (CM) of the NC-Congress coalition government. His grandfather, Sheikh Abdullah, represented the seat in 1977. Omar’s father, former CM Farooq Abdullah, who is the president of NC, won the seat in 1983, 1987, and 1996.

Ganderbal is part of the Srinagar Lok Sabha (LS) constituency.

In the 2024 LS polls, Omar contested the Baramulla seat, which he lost to Independent Sheikh Abdul Rashid ‘Engineer’, who is currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail on charges related to a 2017 alleged terror funding case.

Tuesday was also the last day to file nominations for 24 of the 90 seats that will be contested in the first phase on September 18. Candidates queued up to file their nominations, including several former members of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami Jammu & Kashmir running as Independents.

The Jamaat has not participated in any elections since 1987 and was part of the separatist amalgam Hurriyat Conference, which called for poll boycotts from 1993 to 2003.

Talat Majeed, former ameer (chief) of Jamaat, filed his nomination papers from the Pulwama constituency as an Independent. Majeed said that the changing geopolitical scenario since 2008 convinced him to shed some of the past “rigidities” and engage in the political process.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also released its revised list of 29 candidates for the second and third phases. On Tuesday, the BJP had withdrawn its previous list for these phases due to internal party dissatisfaction with the ‘parachute’ candidates. However, the updated list included only minor changes, replacing one contestant.

With the release of the fresh list, the party has now named candidates for 45 Assembly segments, including nine in the Kashmir Valley, where it has struggled to secure victories in past Assembly elections.

The BJP’s change from the previously rescinded list includes replacing its Shri Mata Vaishno Devi seat contestant. Former Member of Legislative Assembly Baldev Raj Sharma has been named in place of Rohit Dubey. The latest list features 10 candidates for the second phase and 19 for the third phase.

For the first phase, the BJP has not fielded candidates in eight seats: Tral, Pulwama, Zainapora, Damhal Hanji Pora, Kulgam, Devsar, Dooru Shahabad, and Pahalgam.