BJP chooses Sunil Sharma as J&K Assembly leader, Narender Singh for Dy Speaker

Jammu: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday elected Sunil Sharma as its Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly and nominated Narender Singh for the post of the Deputy Speaker.

BJP spokesman said that the party’s MLAs have elected Sunil Sharma as the LOP in the J&K legislative Assembly while the party nominated Narender Singh for the post of Deputy Speaker offered to BJP by the ruling National Conference (NC).

Earlier on Sunday, BJP appointed Sat Sharma as the J&K party president, replacing Ravinder Raina.

The decision was made by BJP President J. P. Nadda and will come into force with immediate effect, party sources said.

Ravinder Raina lost the Assembly election from the Nowshera constituency of Rajouri district to NC, candidate Surinder Choudhary. Choudhary is now the Deputy Chief Minister in Omar Abdullah-headed J&K government.

Ravinder Raina has been appointed as a member of the BJP’s national working committee.

BJP got 29 seats in the 90-member J&K assembly while the NC got 42, Congress 6, PDP 3, CPI-M 1, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) 1, Peoples Conference (PC) 1 and Independents won 7 seats.

Six Independent candidates later joined the NC. One Independent, Satish Sharma, who defeated former Deputy Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Tara Chand in Chhamb Assembly constituency of Jammu district, is now a minister in the Omar Abdullah-headed Cabinet.

BJP got all its 29 Assembly seats from Jammu division and Congress managed to win just one Assembly seat in the Jammu division while it got five seats from the Valley.

NC and Congress fought the Assembly polls in a pre-poll alliance.

Congress has supported the NC government but decided not to join the government as long as J&K remained a Union Territory.

CPI-M and AAP with one seat each have also supported the NC government.

Immediately, after coming to power, J&K Cabinet passed a resolution for restoration of statehood. Omar Abdullah personally submitted the resolution to Union Home Minister, Amit Shah and the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

NC has also decided to bring in a resolution for the restoration of Article 370 in the legislative Aassembly session that begins on Monday.

It must be recalled that the NC made the restoration of statehood and Article 370 its main electoral plank.