National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah is likely to be sent to Rajya Sabha when the Election Commission will announce the poll to Jammu and Kashmir’s four seats to the Upper House of Parliament.
All four seats of J&K are lying vacant in the Rajya Sabha since February 2021 as elections for the assembly were held recently after a gap of 10 years.
The last election for the Rajya Sabha seats was held in 2015 here.
Abdullah was a member of the Lok Sabha till the recent elections when his son Omar Abdullah in his place contested the polls from the Baramulla constituency and lost.
However, Omar has now turned victorious on two assembly seats, Ganderbal and Budgam, from where he contested and is set to be sworn as chief minister of the UT in a day or two.
Abdullah at the moment is not a member of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or the J&K Assembly. In the past, he was either chief minister or a member of the Lok Sabha. He was a member of the Rajya Sabha twice from 2002 to 2008 and 2009 to 2015. In the latter term, he was a minister in the UPA government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh.
NC sources said that the party has principally decided to send Dr. Abdullah to the Rajya Sabha when the elections are held after formation of the Assembly.
The NC-Congress-CPI(M) alliance has won 49 seats in the assembly, besides 4 independents and the lone MLA of AAP have also supported the NC taking the strength of the alliance to 54. The BJP won 29 seats, PDP 3 and Peoples Conference 1. Seven seats were won by independents.
Meanwhile, in a bid to woo the large chunk of Gujjar voters, the BJP had before the Lok Sabha elections nominated Ghulam Ali Khatana to the Rajya Sabha.