NC's Senior Legislator Rahim Rather To Be Speaker Of Jammu and Kashmir UT Assembly

Ahead of the new Jammu and Kashmir Assembly session, the National Conference and Congress nominated Abdul Rahim Rather as their candidate for the Speaker's post.

Srinagar: Ahead of the first Assembly session of the new government in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, National Conference and Congress coalition partners in the government on Sunday held legislative party meetings for nominating the candidate for the post of Speaker. The parties decided that NC senior leader and MLA from the Chrar-e-Sharief Assembly segment Abdul Rahim Rather will be elected as the Speaker of the UT Assembly.

According to the notification of the Legislative Assembly business issued by its secretary Manoj Kumar Pandit, Minister for Agriculture Production, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Javaid Ahmad Dar will move the motion for the election of the Speaker. "Advocate Abdul Rahim Rather, a member of this House be chosen as the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly," states the motion to be tabled by the Minister.

Rather is a veteran NC leader, who has been elected for the seventh time to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Since 1977, Rather has been winning the Assembly elections on a trot up to 2014 on an NC ticket from the Char-i-Sharif constituency of Budgam district. However, in 2014, he lost to the Peoples Democratic Party candidate Ghulam Nabi Lone, but Rather made a strong comeback in the 2024 elections and defeated Lone.

The 80-year-old Rather had been Finance Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in NC governments and is one of the veteran NC leaders, who has shared the government stage with NC founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah. The NC and Congress first held separate legislative party meetings in Srinagar that were followed by a joint meeting of the coalition partners and included the five independents and the lone legislator of CPI (M) Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami.

The NC meeting was chaired by its Legislative Party Leader and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah while the Congress meeting was chaired by its president Tariq Hameed Karra. Sources in Congress and NC said that the parties discussed the strategy of debating on the address of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha in the Assembly on Monday and how to tackle the opposition BJP in the Assembly.

NC and Congress government has a strength of 55 legislators in the House, which includes the 42 legislators of the NC, six of Congress, five independents, who are supporting NC and the single CPI (M) legislator Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami. Bharatiya Janata Party, which elected MLA Sunil Sharma as its Leader of the Opposition, has 28 legislators. It won 29 seats in Jamm but due to the death of its MLA Devender Singh Rana, its number has reduced to 28. The BJP nominated Dr Narinder Singh as its candidate for the post of Deputy Speaker.

The five-day session will be held on Monday and as per the calendar issued by the Speaker Pro-tem Mubarak Gul, the Assembly will elect the Speaker first. The election of the Speaker will be followed by the address of the LG. The LG's address will set the stage for the debate for the subsequent proceedings. On November 5, the House will pay obituary references to the MLAs, who passed away since the last session of the erstwhile Assembly. This solemn tribute will acknowledge the contributions of departed leaders.

From November 6 to 7, the focus will shift to a discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the Lieutenant Governor's address. The last day of the session will witness a discussion on the Motion of Thanks and reply thereto.