The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) on Friday extended support to the National Conference (NC) for forming the government in Jammu and Kashmir.

This has paved the way for Omar Abdullah to become Chief Minister of the Union Territory (UT). Omar was on Thursday unanimously elected as the leader of the National Conference Legislature Party.

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A meeting of the CLP was held in Srinagar in the afternoon in which it was decided to extend support to the NC, said the UT’s Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra, who presided over the meeting after returning from New Delhi.

AICin-charge e of J&K Bharat Solanki was present in the meeting. Senior Congress leaders will present the letter of support to the NC leadership.

Karra said, “Today in the CLP meeting, we unanimously passed a resolution and authorised the party’s central leadership to choose our CLP leader. We have extended our support to the National Conference and we will hand over the letter of support to them in some time.”

Replying to questions on the demand of berths for the Congress in the coalition ministry, Karra said “We have no demands. We are supporting the National Conference for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. We will sit with them formally and at that time we will discuss what the model of governance will be like. The spirit of this alliance is far beyond the game of numbers and ministerial posts.”

He said “The spirit of this alliance is very high and it has a great noble cause and we want to fight the menace of BJP, this is the spirit”.

It is worth mentioning that the strength of the NC-Congress-CPI(M) pre-poll alliance has increased to 54 in the house of 90 seats after 5 of the 7 independents and the lone AAP MLA Mehraj Malik have also extended support to the NC. The NC has won 42 seats, Congress 6 and CPM 1.

After a meeting of the alliance in which Omar Abdullah is set to be elected as the leader, he will meet the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha to stake claim for forming the government in J&K.

Omar has already said that he was in favour of an early date for the oath ceremony so that the new government gets to work for the people.

The PDP-BJP coalition government that was formed after the 2014 assembly elections fell in June 2018 when the latter withdrew support to the then CM Mehbooba Mufti. Thereafter, J&K has been under the central rule.