The National Conference-Congress alliance won the recent Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections and is set to form the government. NC vice president Omar Abdullah will be the next chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
The announcement came after PAGD leaders met at Abdullah's Gupkar Road residence in Srinagar to discuss the Centre's invitation.
People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti said on Monday that she will not contest elections until 'both the constitutions' of India and the erstwhile state are made applicable to Jammu and Kashmir.
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on Wednesday slammed ally Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray's MP Sanjay Raut for his remarks on Haryana poll outcome, stressing that accusations against Congress won't be tolerated.
BJP members, including the Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, opposed the resolution, saying it was not part of the listed business.
The legislature party of the PDP which met in Srinagar on Thursday afternoon unanimously chose Mehbooba Mufti as the chief ministerial candidate as also its leader.
She was initially detained on August 5 last year when the Centre abrogated special status of the erstwhile state and bifurcated it into two union territories -- Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Lashing out at Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, Rashid on Wednesday alleged that they have "destroyed" Kashmir.
Ahead of counting of votes, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday said his party was open to the idea of taking support of Mehbooba Mufti's People's Democratic Party to form government in the Union territory.
'Her tussle is a different ballgame from what it was when Farooq Abdullah and Rajiv Gandhi were the main players at the two ends of the power game.' 'The shadow of the party in power in New Delhi over J&K affairs in 1987 was not as menacing as it is in 2018,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the doyen of Kashmir commentators.
The 60-year-old Peoples Democratic Party leader, who was released last year after more than a year in detention, has been served notice to appear at the ED headquarters in the national capital.
The announcement comes on a day a 15-member delegation of National Conference from Jammu met their detained party president Farooq Abdullah and vice president Omar Abdullah in Srinagar.
Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary Ram Madhav on Wednesday accused the National Conference and the People's Democratic Party of taking support from ex-militants for the assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, and said the two parties want to take the Union territory back to its 'trouble-filled days'.
'If you post on social media on an issue like power cuts in Tral, the police will come to your home and tell you to remove your social media post.' 'If you don't, then the local police threaten you that they will book you under PSA.' 'This is happening all the time in Kashmir.'
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is poised to form the first elected government in Jammu and Kashmir, having secured a victory in the assembly elections by securing 49 out of 90 seats on which polls were held for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 five years ago.
The Congress and the National Conference on Monday announced they will fight the Lok Sabha polls in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, in alliance, with both parties contesting three seats each.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi allowed the Peoples Democratic Party chief's daughter Iltija to meet her after she submitted in court that she has no problem in going to their Srinagar home but has not been able to move freely in the city.
The bench also asked Mehta how long the Centre proposes to extend the detention. The Supreme Court noted, detention cannot be for forever and "some via media" may be explored for this.
She defeated her nearest rival, Hilal Ahmad Shah of the Congress party by 12,085 votes. Mehbooba polled 17,701 votes.
Mehbooba also recalled that the events post the 1987 Assembly elections had 'created' Syed Salahuddin, the supremo of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen, and Mohammad Yasin Malik, the separatist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief.
Mufti was among hundreds of people who were taken into preventive custody hours ahead of the Centre revoking special status of the Jammu and Kashmir and breaking the state into two union territories on August 5 last year.
"We are the people, especially in the Kashmir Valley, who upheld the tricolour high over the years at the cost of thousands of our workers who were martyred," Mufti told reporters in Jammu at the end of her five-day visit to Jammu -- her first after release from over one-year-long detention under the Pubic Safety Act (PSA).
The BJP will focus on the dozen constituencies that eluded it in the 2014 assembly elections. A better performance in these seats could help it reach as close as possible to the halfway mark of 44 seats by the time the next elections are held and have its own chief minister.
Abdullah said they are claiming that terrorism is over but the ground situation shows that it has increased in otherwise peaceful Jammu region.
'The Congress backstabbed us and the BJP frontstabbed us.' 'This is the only difference between the two parties.'
Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference leaders Sajjad Lone and Imran Ansari have also been arrested, they said.
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's all-party meet, People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday said peace in the region cannot be restored without undoing the 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional' act of revocation of the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, not an inch of movement has taken place on the implementation of the 'Agenda of Alliance', the manifesto of the PDP-BJP coalition government. Unless the BJP plays ball, the PDP will be in serious trouble, warns Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
Police on Saturday detained Opposition Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti as she was heading towards Shopian district where four persons were killed in CRPF firing last week.
'The Abdullah family is the problem and facilitator of the instability that we are seeing in Kashmir.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday clinched a stunning hat-trick win in Haryana overcoming anti-incumbency and dashing Congress' hopes of a comeback while the National Conference-Congress combine pulled off a spectacular victory in maiden elections in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
The former J-K CM said Shardapeeth in Pak-administered Kashmir is an outstanding relic of Kashmir's glowing history.
Mehbooba has also met with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
'The lack of opportunities here remains the biggest worry.' 'We have seen investment summits, but if you look around, much of it is only on paper and not on the ground.'
Mehbooba said Article 370 was a bridge between the Union and the state.
'...or go to jail.' 'The government is getting them silenced.'
Bukhari said party president Mehbooba Mufti was scheduled to address various workers' conventions as part of her ongoing public outreach programme over the next few days.
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