BUDGAM/GANDERBAL: For all his primacy in J&Okay politics and his stewardship of Nationwide Convention, social gathering mascot Omar Abdullah has didn’t settle right into a seat that would grow to be synonymous with him over twenty years of his profession, as is the hallmark of political protagonists throughout the nation. The second section of voting on Wednesday will once more highlight the constituency-hopping by Abdullah Junior, who’s attempting his luck in 2024 from two seats – Ganderbal and Budgam.
A former CM who has just about led the social gathering in two elections and has managed to ring a bell with staff and the bigger voters, Omar has modified his seat from Beerwah that he gained in 2014.
However Beerwah was not the unique constituency that Omar represented. In 2008, he gained from Ganderbal, represented by the 2 CMs from his household, grandfather Sheikh Abdullah and father Farooq Abdullah, and thus got here to be referred to as the Abdullahs’ turf. That 12 months, Omar turned the youngest CM of J&Okay. Nonetheless, in 2002, when Omar sought to proceed the household legacy in Ganderbal by taking the meeting plunge, he crashed to a shock defeat to PDP, in what was a tricky election for NC statewide. The defeat presumably gnawed at his thoughts when he in 2014, in one other robust contest predicted for the NC, shifted to Beerwah.
Absence of a seat recognized with Omar is incongruous with how politics is finished in different elements of the nation, the place high gamers file the papers from a recognized pocket after which come to marketing campaign on the final day. Returning to Ganderbal this 12 months, after having shifted to Beerwah in 2014, betrayed Omar’s want to revive the household tag to the seat and make a everlasting residence.
However his fast addition of Budgam to the record spoilt the optics and created a wierd image the place he seems bullish about his social gathering’s prospects whereas being uncertain of his personal. The scenes of Omar holding his cap and asking for votes has solely amplified the impression that he’s apprehensive.
Could also be, his concern is the aftershock of his shock defeat within the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla earlier in June, when maverick Engineer Rashid gained by an enormous margin whereas contesting from jail the place he had been lodged since 2019.
Former three-term MLA from Budgam earlier than he turned MP from Srinagar this 12 months, Syed Aga Ruhullah Mehdi instructed TOI that it was the individuals of his former constituency that demanded that Omar contest from there. However Bashir Mir, the PDP candidate from Ganderbal who’s mounting a robust problem, stated, “Omar thought PDP will subject some weak candidate. However once I got here right here, he realized it was troublesome. That is why he sought a second seat.” Bashir ran the NC stalwart and Gujjar religious information Mian Altaf Ahmad, now a Lok Sabha MP, shut in Kangan in 2014 state polls, and has shifted to Ganderbal this 12 months after neighbouring Kangan was reserved for STs.
