Omar Abdullah

Omar Abdullah is the vice president of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) and the former Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir from 2009 to 2015. He became the youngest Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 2009. He became the Minister of State for External Affairs in 2001 under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He three times represented the Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency in 1998, 1999, and 2004. In the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, Abdullah won the Srinagar seat by defeating Congress candidate Aga Syed Mohdi by a margin of 70,839 votes. Omar retained his seat in the 1999 Lok Sabha Election after defeating independent candidate Mehbooba Mufti by 36,859 votes. He again won the constituency in 2004 by defeating Advocate Ghulam Nabi Lone of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP). Abdullah contested the 2002 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections from Ganderbal but lost to JKPDP candidate Qazi Mohd Afzal by 2,870 votes. However, he successfully won the seat in the 2008 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections when he defeated Afzal by 8,215 votes. In 2014, he fought from two constituencies, Beerwah and Sonawar. He won the Beerwah seat by defeating Congress candidate Nazir Ahmad Khan with a margin of just 910 votes. However, he was defeated by Mohammad Ashraf Mir of the JKPDP in Sonawar. He became the Leader of the Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in 2015. In the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, Omar Abdullah was decisively defeated by independent candidate Abdul Rashid Sheikh by 2,04,142 votes in Baramulla. Omar is again contesting from two seats, namely Ganderbal and Budgam, in the 2024 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Elections.