SRINAGAR, Oct 21: The newly elected members of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly were administered oath on Monday by Pro-tem Speaker Mubarak Gul, with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah taking the pledge in the Kashmiri language.
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The Chief Minister won both the Budgam and Ganderbal Assembly constituencies in the recently held elections. He vacated the Budgam seat and retained the Ganderbal constituency, the pro-tem speaker announced in the House on Monday. The Ganderbal seat is considered an Abdullah family stronghold.
The 54-year-old leader was an MLA from Ganderbal from 2009 to 2014 during his first tenure as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
With this, the strength of the National Conference in the 95-member House has been reduced to 41 but the party still enjoys a comfortable majority with the support of six Congress MLA, five Independents and one MLA each of the AAP and the CPI(M). The BJP with 29 seats is the second-largest party – its best-ever performance in J&K.
Omar Abdullah, son of Farooq Abdullah and his British wife Mollie Abdullah, had often faced criticism for not being able to speak his native language.
While the third generation politician from the Abdullah family is fluent in English, his fluency in vernaculars like Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri was poor at the start of his political career in the late 1990s.
However, during his first tenure as Chief Minister from 2009 to 2014, Mr. Omar Abdullah took lessons to improve his speaking skills in these three languages. And on Monday, he took the oath as MLA in Kashmiri.
Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary took oath in English.
The oath-taking ceremony of the MLAs marks an end to the six-year-long legislative hiatus.
There are 51 first-time members including BJP MLA from Kishtwar Shagun Parihar, who is the youngest member at 29. The NC veteran and MLA from Chrar-e-Sharief, Abdul Rahim Rather, is the oldest at 80.
Mr. Rather and party colleague Ali Mohammad Sagar (MLA Khanyar) have been elected to the Assembly for a record seven terms. While Mr. Sagar has been a member of the Legislative Assembly since 1983, Mr. Rather started his long stint as a legislator in 1977. However, the former finance minister lost the 2014 Assembly elections.
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