In an effort to give the people of the region a voice and make his government inclusive, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appointed party leader Surinder Choudhary from Nowshera in Jammu as his deputy on Wednesday.
After taking the oath of office, the National Conference leader told reporters, “Our endeavour will be to take everyone along.” The oath of office was also taken by five ministers: Sakina Masood (Itoo), Javed Dar, Javed Rana, Surinder Choudhary, and Satish Sharma. There are three vacancies and “they will gradually be filled”, Mr Abdullah said.
He claimed that in order to ensure that the people of Jammu do not feel excluded from the administration, Mr Choudhary, a former member of the PDP and the BJP who became a giant slayer after defeating BJP’s J-K president Ravinder Raina from Nowshera by 7,819 votes, was appointed deputy chief minister.
“I had said that we will not allow Jammu to feel that they do not have a voice or representatives in this government. I have chosen a deputy chief minister from Jammu so that the people of Jammu feel that this government is as much theirs as it is of the rest,” he said.
By a margin of more than 10,000 votes, Mr. Raina defeated Mr. Choudhary, who was then running on a PDP ticket, to win the Nowshera seat in the 2014 assembly elections.
After leaving the PDP in 2022 to join the BJP, Mr. Choudhary joined the NC in July of last year, ending his more than one-year affiliation with the party.
Since the repeal of Article 370 in 2019 and the division of the state into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, this is the first elected administration.
The National Conference took home 42 of the 90 seats in the most recent assembly elections, while Congress, an alliance partner, took home six. Together, the two pre-poll allies hold a majority in the 95-member assembly — five members are to be nominated by the LG.
