National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, whose party is back in Jammu and Kashmir, is likely to be the next chief minister of the union territory. Abdullah's social media post from 2014 after he faced defeat in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls has gone viral on social media.
"Keep calm cause (because) I'll be back," he wrote in the post on X on December 24, 2014, indicating his party's return to power.
The National Conference (NC)-Congress alliance won 49 seats in the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. The elections in the union territory were held for the first time after the abrogation of Article 370. Omar Abdullah won from both Budgam and Ganderbal Assembly seats. He has been picked as the next Chief Minister, said his father and ex-Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah.
Congress fielded candidates in 39 seats and won just six. The party in the 2014 election contested 86 seats and won 12 seats.
Congress's Nowshera candidate Surinder Choudhary called this a referendum against Article 370. "This is a referendum against the enforcement of Article 370. Today, the government will have to think as their (BJP's) state president has also lost," he said after the big win.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the Congress-NC alliance on winning the majority in the Jammu Kashmir assembly elections.
Addressing the BJP workers at party headquarters, PM Modi said, "Following decades of wait in Jammu and Kashmir, elections were peacefully held there. This is a victory of India's Constitution and democracy. The people of Jammu and Kashmir have given more seats to the National Conference and their alliance, and I would like to congratulate them as well. But if you look at the vote percentage, then BJP has emerged as the largest party among all those who contested the polls."