Omar Abdullah Expresses Hope for a More Favorable 2025

Srinagar, Jan 1 (NationPress) The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, has expressed his desire for 2025 to be more forgiving and manageable than the year that has just passed.

In a post on X, the CM reflected, “2024 was quite a tumultuous year; when it was good, it was fantastic, but when it was bad, it was truly disheartening. 2025, please be gentle with my fragile heart.”

He reminisced about the challenging moments he faced in 2024. He achieved significant success in the Legislative Assembly elections by securing victories from both Ganderbal and Budgam constituencies, astonishing his rivals. However, this victory followed a humiliating setback when the jailed leader, Engineer Rashid, defeated him by over two lakh votes in the Lok Sabha elections from the Baramulla constituency.

During 2024, Omar had previously stated he would not contest the Assembly elections as long as J&K remained a union territory. Nevertheless, he later reversed his decision and opted to run in the Assembly elections.

Despite his unwavering political commitment to advocate for restoring J&K, which his party, the National Conference (NC), refers to as its ‘unconstitutionally usurped rights’, neither Omar Abdullah nor any of his party members anticipated winning 42 out of the 90 available seats in the Legislative Assembly elections.

The NC's choice to form a pre-election alliance with the Congress party was influenced by their uncertainty regarding achieving a simple majority alone.

This strategy backfired, as the Congress secured five seats in the Valley, while it could only manage one seat in the Jammu division.

In the Jammu division, the NC had designated certain seats for the Congress to contest against the BJP, where the latter holds a substantial political presence. Consequently, the BJP emerged victorious in 29 out of the 43 seats in the Jammu division.

Some support for the INDIA coalition came from the NC, which managed to win a few seats in the Poonch, Ramban, and Rajouri districts of the Jammu division.

With hindsight, the NC believes it could have captured at least four more seats had they not allowed the Congress to contest those seats.

Omar Abdullah has previously noted that his experience indicates that during electoral alliances, party vote banks do not translate successfully to benefit the alliance partners.

This principle was evident in the NC-Congress pre-poll alliance in J&K, where the seats surrendered to the Congress in the Jammu division resulted in a direct contest between the BJP and Congress.

Indeed, Omar Abdullah’s assertion regarding vote banks failing to favor alliances proved accurate in the Jammu division.

While celebrating the success of winning 42 Assembly seats, the NC was left with the bitter realization of having given away seats to the Congress that it could have won independently.

Additional concerns arose for Omar Abdullah in 2024 after assuming power, as his quest for the restoration of statehood persisted.

Omar Abdullah remains optimistic that 2025 will offer him a more favorable, smoother, and kinder political and administrative landscape.

This marks his second term as Chief Minister of J&K, but circumstances have evolved significantly since the abrogation of Article 370, with J&K now operating as a union territory.