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Conceding defeat in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly election, National Conference president Omar Abdullah on Thursday blamed factionalism within the party and the inability to convert 'good work' into votes as the reasons for the party's poor performance.
He said his party will not stake claim to form a government, even if it emerges as the single-largest party.
He hoped his party would bag at least 25 to 27 seats to emerge as the single-largest party.
Predicting that the Congress-PDP coalition would not last long, he said already a quarrel had started between the two parties as to who would become the chief minister.
"I don't want to become a doomsday professor.... but I have always been saying that the problems of the state would worsen with a Khichri government," he said.
Dismissing a suggestion that the NC had lost the elections because of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, he said the reasons for the drubbing needed to be gone into.
Abdullah also said he would resign from the Vajpayee government.
But he said the continuance of his party in the National Democratic Alliance was an 'open question'.
"I will resign from the NDA ministry once Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee returns from abroad," Omar, who lost to the People's Democratic Party candidate Qazi Mohammad Afzal from Ganderbal seat, said.
PTI
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