Omar double powers NC-Cong to 48 in J&K, BJP second with 29

SRINAGAR: Omar Abdullah 's double bill headlined J&K's first election in a decade as voters in the Union territory delivered Tuesday a mandate that put the National Conference-Congress alliance in line to form the govt, albeit with a thumbs down to one-half of the coalition and a fillip to BJP that saw it finish second with a higher tally than in 2014.

NC rode Omar's victories in Ganderbal and Budgam to ratchet up 42 of the seats required for the alliance to hit the magic figure of 48 in the 95-strong assembly, which will have five nominees of the lieutenant governor. The figure is nearly three times the 15 seats NC won in the last election.

While Congress's kitty halved to six seats compared to 2014, BJP's rose from 25 to 29—all in the Jammu division. Mehbooba Mufti's PDP , the single largest party in the previous election with 28 MLAs, collapsed in a heap to end up with its worst-ever return of three seats. Winning Independents outnumbered both Congress and PDP, with seven of them forming the third-largest bloc.

"Omar Abdullah will be the chief minister," NC president Farooq Abdullah said, terming the poll verdict proof that J&K never accepted the nullification of Article 370 .

Without naming anyone, Omar said those who sought to write NC's obituary "perished" under the weight of the people's verdict. "We must reciprocate this mandate by fulfilling people's expectations."

In south Kashmir's Anantnag district, NC-Congress won all seven seats, blanking out PDP. Mehbooba's daughter Iltija, making her poll debut in Bijbehara-Srigufwara, was among the prominent losers. Dr Bashir Ahmad Veeri of NC is the first candidate outside PDP to win that seat.

People's Conference chief Sajjad Lone, who fared even worse than Omar in the Baramulla Lok Sabha poll a little over four months ago, scraped through in Handwara by a margin of 662 votes to spare People's Conference the blushes.

CPI(M) had a lone victory, with Mohd Tarigami winning Kulgam. AAP opened its account in J&K with Mehraj Malik's surprise victory in Doda.

In terms of vote share, BJP was the biggest winner, garnering 25.6% of the votes polled. This is 2.6% more than what it received in 2014. NC was second with 23.4%, also an improvement of 2.6% over the last election. Congress, which had fielded candidates in 39 seats, saw its vote share slump 6% to 11.9% compared to the previous election, while PDP's fell 13.8% to hit single digits at 8.8%.

J&K BJP spokesperson Y V Sharma said BJP increasing its vote share and tally by four seats was a measure of voter confidence in the steps taken by the Narendra Modi govt to weed out everything that had so far been holding back the UT.

"A total of 209 laws that applied to the erstwhile state of J&K have been repealed. BJP is committed to the welfare of people, especially the poor, marginalised and deprived, as promised in our Sankalp Patra," he said.

NC-Congress's combined tally of 48 dispelled the alliance's doubts about the gubernatorial nomination of five members with "full legislative powers and privileges" potentially influencing who forms the govt.

The power to nominate five members was provisioned by the Delimitation Commission, increasing the number of seats in J&K. Two of the five will be women, another two Kashmiri Pandits, and the fifth a "displaced" person from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

NC, Congress and PDP had criticised the provision as undemocratic.