I'll complete 6-year term as CM, reasserts Omar

For the second time in a week, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday asserted that he would complete the full six-year term.

The reassertion by the chief minister followed news reports that some local Congress leaders had been pressing for the change of guard in the state.

The Congress leaders have been raising the issue that the party should press for three year term for the post of chief minister in the state, an arrangement that had been worked out with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party after the 2002 polls in the state.

Significantly at a Congress meeting at the state party headquarters in Srinagar on Monday, slogans were raised for rotation of the chief minister's post with former Union minister Dr Karan Singh assuring the party activists that 'their sentiments would be conveyed to the party high command in New Delhi.'

PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had headed the coalition government for three years followed by a change of guard in the state which saw the senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad heading the alliance.

However, the government fell following the 2008 Amarnath land row agitation in Kashmir.

The estrangement between the Congress and the PDP saw the two parties fighting the 2008 polls against each other.

The estranged relations between the Congress party and the PDP paved way for the National Conference-Congress alliance in Jammu and Kashmir after the 2008 elections.

Omar Abdullah became the chief minister after his father, the NC patron and former chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah opted out of the race for the CM's post.

Omar's emergence as the chief ministerial candidate got full backing from the Congress high command and the resulting agreement between the two parties got the present government to power.

Omar had stated before taking oath in January 2009 that there will be no rotation of chief minister's post and that he would remain chief minister for full six year term.

However, the recent voices for a rotational chief minister made Omar reassert his earlier claim that he would remain in saddle for full six-years.

Although the Congress high command is still firmly rallied behind the chief minister, yet at the party level little has been done to stamp the voices raised against Omar's continuation.

This has given rise to an uncertainty of sorts which forced the chief minister to reiterate time and again that he would continue to lead the alliance till the full term of the present assembly in 2014.