5 MLAs take oath with Omar Abdullah, no Cabinet berth for ally Congress

Surinder Choudhary, who emerged as a giant killer by defeating J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina from Nowshera in the Assembly polls, was made the Deputy Chief Minister.

In Short

• 4 National Conference MLAs, one Independent sworn in as Cabinet ministers
• Surinder Choudhary, who defeated Ravinder Raina, to be Deputy Chief Minister
• Congress decides to stay out of council of ministers for now

Four National Conference MLAs and one Independent were sworn in as Cabinet ministers in the new Jammu and Kashmir government, which will have no representative from the Congress for now. Omar Abdullah, who took oath as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir for a second term, will have a deputy in Surinder Singh Choudhary.

Surinder Choudhary, who emerged as a giant killer by defeating J&K BJP chief Ravinder Raina from Nowshera in the Assembly polls, was made the Deputy Chief Minister in a bid to give representation to the Jammu division in the ministry.

Satish Sharma, who successfully contested as an Independent after quitting the Congress, was among the five MLAs who took oath on Wednesday at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC). The other three MLAs were from the National Conference -- Sakina Yetoo, Javid Dar, and Javid Rana.

Thus, three of the six ministers, including Abdullah, are from the Kashmir region, while the other three are from Jammu.

Satish Sharma, the son of two-time MP and former Congress minister Madan Lal Sharma, won the Chhamb seat in Jammu by defeating BJP's Rajeev Sharma by a margin of 6,929 votes.

Even though the Congress contested the J&K Assembly polls in alliance with the National Conference, it was not included in the Cabinet. The Congress won just six seats in the Assembly polls, with its senior ally doing the heavy lifting to take the alliance past the majority mark. The alliance won 48 seats.

The J&K government can have only nine ministers, including the Chief Minister.

In a statement, the Congress unit in J&K said it decided not to join the Council of Ministers as the party was "unhappy" that statehood was not restored to the Union Territory.

"The Congress has strongly demanded from the Centre to restore statehood to J&K. Besides, the Prime Minister has time and again in public meetings promised the same. But statehood has not been restored to J&K. We are unhappy. Therefore, we are not joining the ministry at the moment," J&K Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra said.