As Jammu and Kashmir gets a new assembly, veteran politician and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah is expected to represent the party in the Rajya Sabha. This was confirmed by NC vice president and chief minister-designate of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, in an exclusive interview with THE WEEK.
“He is the party's brain, guiding us,” Omar said. “Inshallah, once the assembly is in place and we hold elections for the Rajya Sabha, I would very much like to see Dr Sahab go to the Rajya Sabha and fight for the interests of Jammu and Kashmir.”
Once the assembly elections—Jammu and Kashmir's first in over a decade—are completed, the Union Territory (UT) will again have representation in the Rajya Sabha, after three-and-a-half years of absence.
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The newly elected MLAs will elect four representatives to the Rajya Sabha after the Election Commission of India (ECI) issues a notification. Currently, Ghulam Ali Khatana is the only Rajya Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir. He was nominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party to represent the Gujjar community in Parliament, a move aimed at gaining their support in the assembly elections.
Under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 the 90-member J&K Assembly can elect five Lok Sabha members and four Rajya Sabha members.
The last Rajya Sabha elections in J&K were held in 2015. At that time, the BJP-PDP alliance won three seats, while the NC-Congress alliance secured one seat, paving way for former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to become the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. All four Rajya Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir retired in February 2021.
Farooq Abdullah, 86, was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from the Srinagar Parliamentary constituency. The NC also won two other Lok Sabha seats from the Kashmir Valley — Hasnain Masoodi from Anantnag and Muhammad Akbar Lone from Baramulla.
