Farooq Abdullah won’t contest 2024 Lok Sabha polls, son Omar cites ‘health reasons’

National Conference president and sitting MP from Srinagar Farooq Abdullah will not contest Lok Sabha polls

Srinagar:

National Conference president and sitting MP from Srinagar Farooq Abdullah will not contest the Lok Sabha polls due to health reasons, the party said today.

The news was announced by his son and National Conference Vice Chairman Omar Abdullah at a party event in Rawalpura, a suburb of the city.

Omar Abdullah said: “He (Farooq Abdullah) has obtained permission from (party general secretary) (Ali Mohammed) Sagar and other party members not to participate this time due to health reasons vote.”

He said it was now the party’s responsibility to select the best candidate from the constituency. He hoped that the voters would help the NC candidate succeed and make him/her the voice of the people of Srinagar, Delhi.

In the 2002 Legislative Assembly elections, Omar Abdullah was elected leader of the National Council, while 86-year-old Farooq Abdullah moved to the center.

Farooq Abdullah was elected to the Federal Assembly from Jammu and Kashmir in 2002 and re-elected in 2009. He resigned from the Rajya Sabha in May 2009 and won a Lok Sabha seat from Srinagar.

Mr Abdullah joins the United Progressive Alliance government as Cabinet Minister for New and Renewable Energy.

Mr Abdullah once again contested for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 elections but was defeated by People’s Democratic Party candidate Tariq Hamid Kala.

However, Mr Kalla resigned from the Lok Sabha in 2017, leading to a by-election for the Srinagar parliamentary seat, which Abdullah won over People’s Democratic Party candidate Nazir Ahmed Khan.

He won the polls again in 2019.

Omar Abdullah said the upcoming parliamentary elections are very different from past polls.

“Over the last 30 years, elections have been affected in one way or another, people are not turning out to vote – whether it’s because of guns or boycott calls. Our politics in Srinagar has been restricted. Hardly anyone is voting in the district.” We used to come out and vote, our politics used to be based on that.

“This time, the atmosphere will be different. We will not see any boycott calls and the impact of guns will be much less. This time, the people of Srinagar have to decide whether they want to participate in politics here. They have to decide whether they want to raise own voice, whether you want to choose your own representatives,” said the vice president of the national conference.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)