Former chief minister and vice-president of the National Conference (NC), Omar Abdullah on Thursday filed his nomination for the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat.

Escorted by senior party leaders and supporters, he filed his nomination papers before the district development commissioner Baramulla, Minga Sherpa, who is the returning officer of the constituency.

On his way to the Returning Officer’s Office, Omar told media persons that “it is after 20 years that I am filing papers to contest the Lok Sabha election”. He was a member of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009.

“It is after ten years that I am filing nomination for any election. The previous nomination I filed was in the last assembly election in 2014 when I won from the Beerwah constituency. There has been no assembly election since the past ten years, this tells you about the situation of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir”, he added.

Omar is pitted against Peoples Conference president Sajad Lone and jailed former legislator Engineer Rashid. The PDP has named former Rajya Sabha member Mir Fayaz for the seat for which the last date for filing nominations is 3 May and poll on 20 May.

After filing his papers, Omar said the current elections were important as it is the first big election in J&K after 5 August 2019 when Article 370 was abrogated. We are seeking votes against those decisions. NC’s stand has always been clear on the issue of abrogation of Article 370, he said.

He was hopeful that the INDIA bloc would win all five Lok Sabha seats of J&K.

Omar said the BJP leadership was being allowed to use religion in its poll campaign. Other parties are told that using religion in the election was a violation of the model code of conduct.

“We left Srinagar in a couple of vehicles but reached here in a huge rally. And seeing such a huge enthusiasm, I won’t be surprised if they postpone the elections in Baramulla like Anantnag. But whenever the elections are held we will be victorious. Voters have to decide on 20 May whether they want to send their candidate to Delhi or get Delhi’s proxy to Baramulla. My fight is not against an individual or a party but against the government in Delhi and RSS of Nagpur who want to defeat the INDIA Alliance, ” said Omar Abdullah.

Baramulla has over 17.28 lakh voters registered, with 8.7 lakh males and 8.5 lakh females. There are 33 transgenders registered as well. So far, 11 candidates have filed nominations and few more are expected in the next 24 hours.