Despite his role in J&K politics, Omar has no seat to call his own

BUDGAM/GANDERBAL: For all his primacy in J&K politics and his stewardship of National Conference, party mascot Omar Abdullah has failed to settle into a seat that could become synonymous with him over two decades of his career, as is the hallmark of political protagonists across the country. The second phase of voting on Wednesday will again spotlight the constituency-hopping by Abdullah Junior, who is trying his luck in 2024 from two seats - Ganderbal and Budgam.
A former CM who has virtually led the party in two elections and has managed to strike a chord with workers and the larger electorate, Omar has changed his seat from Beerwah that he won in 2014.
But Beerwah was not the original constituency that Omar represented. In 2008, he won from Ganderbal, represented by the two CMs from his family, grandfather Sheikh Abdullah and father Farooq Abdullah, and thus came to be known as the Abdullahs' turf. That year, Omar became the youngest CM of J&K. However, in 2002, when Omar sought to continue the family legacy in Ganderbal by taking the assembly plunge, he crashed to a shock defeat to PDP, in what was a tough election for NC statewide. The defeat possibly gnawed at his mind when he in 2014, in another tough contest predicted for the NC, shifted to Beerwah.
Absence of a seat identified with Omar is incongruous with how politics is done in other parts of the country, where top players file the papers from a known pocket and then come to campaign on the last day. Returning to Ganderbal this year, after having shifted to Beerwah in 2014, betrayed Omar's desire to restore the family tag to the seat and make a permanent home.
But his quick addition of Budgam to the list spoilt the optics and created a strange picture where he appears bullish about his party's prospects while being unsure of his own. The scenes of Omar holding his cap and asking for votes has only amplified the impression that he is apprehensive.
May be, his concern is the aftershock of his surprise defeat in the Lok Sabha elections from Baramulla earlier in June, when maverick Engineer Rashid won by a huge margin while contesting from prison where he had been lodged since 2019.
Former three-term MLA from Budgam before he became MP from Srinagar this year, Syed Aga Ruhullah Mehdi told TOI that it was the people of his former constituency that demanded that Omar contest from there. But Bashir Mir, the PDP candidate from Ganderbal who is mounting a strong challenge, said, "Omar thought PDP will field some weak candidate. But when I came here, he realized it was difficult. That's why he sought a second seat." Bashir ran the NC stalwart and Gujjar spiritual guide Mian Altaf Ahmad, now a Lok Sabha MP, close in Kangan in 2014 state polls, and has shifted to Ganderbal this year after neighbouring Kangan was reserved for STs.