Srinagar, Oct 21 (IANS): Jammu and Kashmir's Pro-tem Speaker Mubarak Gul administered the oath/affirmation to newly-elected MLAs on Monday.

The first to be administered the oath was Chief Minister and the Leader of the House, Omar Abdullah. He took his oath in Kashmiri, surprising his detractors, who often said that the language was unknown to him.

The son of NC President, Dr Farooq Abdullah and British citizen Mollie Abdullah, Omar Abdullah was born on March 10, 1970, in Rockford, Essex in the United Kingdom. In his first tenure as Chief Minister from 2009 to 2015, Omar Abdullah took lessons to improve his speaking skills in Kashmiri, Hindi, and Urdu.

Pro-tem Speaker, Gul, a former Speaker of the Assembly, told the house that Omar Abdullah has resigned as Budgam MLA and has decided to represent the Ganderbal constituency in the assembly. Omar Abdullah fought the Assembly elections from Budgam and Ganderbal and won from both places.

Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary, who represents Nowshera in the Jammu region, took the oath in English.

The oath-taking ceremony of the MLAs marks an end to the six-year period when J&K didn’t have an Assembly.

The 90-member house has 51 first-time members including BJP MLA from Kishtwar, Shagun Parihar who is the youngest member at 29 while the NC MLA from Chrar-e-Sharief, Abdul Rahim Rather, is the oldest at 80.

Rather and party colleague, Ali Mohammad Sagar have been elected to the assembly for a record seven terms. While Sagar has been a member of the Legislative Assembly since 1983, Rather has been a legislator since 1977. He, however, lost the 2014 assembly elections.

The NC has 42, the BJP 29, the Congress six, the PDP three, the CPI-M, the AAP, and the Peoples Conference one each. There are 7 Independents. The Congress, the CPI-M, the AAP and 6 independents are supporting the NC government.