3 min readSrinagarOct 15, 2025 01:03 AM IST
First published on: Oct 14, 2025 at 08:46 PM IST
A day after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah termed the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls a “true test” of who in J&K is with the BJP and who is against it, People’s Conference chief Sajad Lone said the CM should refrain from labelling anyone who does not vote for the National Conference’s candidates.
Omar, the vice president of the National Conference (NC), had said on Monday that his party would contest all four vacant Rajya Sabha seats from J&K, for which elections are to be held on October 24, after failing to reach a seat-sharing agreement with ally Congress. The Chief Minister also said the BJP would not be able to secure a single seat “without horse trading” since there are only 28 BJP MLAs in the 90-member house.
On Tuesday, Handwara MLA Lone announced that his party would abstain from voting in the Rajya Sabha elections, asserting that he would not vote for the NC nor the BJP. “They are indistinguishable,” he said.
“Stop dictating to us who we should vote for and who we should not. You cannot label us. You are not a prince,” Lone said in a press conference.
Lashing out at the Omar Abdullah administration, Lone claimed, “Everyone knows he cannot run an administration, yet he excels at pretending otherwise. He labels others as BJP supporters while he himself is indistinguishable from the BJP.”
He said it was the NC, not other parties, that is “in the dock”. “NC has to prove to the people of J&K that you did not deny a Rajya Sabha seat to Congress on BJP’s orders,” Lone said.
Rejecting claims that abstention signals support for the BJP, Lone added that he would not be surprised if Omar accuses the Congress of having a “pact” with the BJP.
He accused the NC of having “forfeited” public trust, saying that the NC is functioning as the BJP’s “proxy” in J&K.
“You take orders from them, deny seats to other parties, and still accuse others of being aligned with the BJP. You have sacrificed everyone for them and won through lies and deceit,” he said.
Contrasting the NC with the Congress, Lone said, “Congress has consistently stood against the BJP and is the only national party capable of restoring statehood. Yet you humiliate them. I have personally assured support to many Congress leaders. For NC, however, we will never vote.”
He also condemned the NC government’s legacy, saying, “You travelled the world as foreign minister of the then BJP government, justifying killings in Kashmir. The people voted for a leader, what they got was an errand boy for the BJP. You have brought disrepute to the institution of Chief Minister. It will take a decade to restore this institution to its former glory.”
Rejecting claims that abstention signals support for the BJP, Sajad Lone added that he would not be surprised if Omar accuses the Congress of having a “pact” with the BJP. (File photo) 
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