Omar Abdullah will be chief minister: Farooq Abdullah says J&K's mandate clear

National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah said the people of Jammu and Kashmir have given their mandate and his son Omar will be the next chief minister.

In Short

• National Conference leads with ally Congress in Jammu and Kashmir
• Omar Abdullah wins Budgam seat, leads in Ganderbal
• Farooq Abdullah announces Omar will be next chief minister

National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah said his son Omar will be the next chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir after the party and its ally Congress crossed the halfway mark in the election results on Tuesday.

Speaking to the media, Farooq Abdullah said, "People have given their mandate. They have proven that they don't accept the decision that was taken on August 5 (abrogation of Article 370). Omar Abdullah will be the chief minister."

Omar Abdullah also claimed victory in the polls. "Entire result hasn't come yet, we will talk about this after that. The way NC has got victory, we are thankful to the voters. People have supported us more than our expectations. Now our efforts will be to prove that we are worth these votes," he told the media.

At the time of filing of this report, the National Conference had won seven constituencies and was ahead on 34 seats. With its INDIA bloc ally Congress, which is leading on six seats, the party is comfortably ahead of the halfway mark of 46 in the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

Omar Abdullah contested on two seats - Budgam and Ganderbal. While Omar has won the Budgam seat by a margin of 18,485 votes, he is leading in Ganderbal by a margin of 9,766 votes after 15 rounds of counting.

After the early trends showed the National Conference-Congress alliance in the lead, Omar Abdullah mocked the exit polls, which had predicted a hung assembly in the Union Territory.

"If you pay for exit polls or waste time discussing them, you deserve all the jokes/memes/ridicule. There was a reason I called them a waste of time a few days ago," Omar Abdullah tweeted.

The former Chief Minister had contested the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year from Baramulla seat, where he was defeated by Independent candidate Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid.