Senior Jammu and Kashmir BJP leader Devender Singh Rana passes away

Devendra Singh Rana, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and MLA from Nagrota constituency of Jammu and Kashmir, died in a hospital in Faridabad late on Thursday night.

Devendra Singh Rana, younger brother of Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh, had won the 2014 assembly elections on a National Conference (NC) ticket. In the recently held elections, he retained the Nagrota seat by winning on BJP ticket by a margin of 30,472 votes. His nearest rival Joginder Singh of NC got 17,641 votes.

Rana had won against his rival in the 2024 assembly elections with the highest margin.

In the elections for 90 seats of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, NC won 42, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 29, Congress six, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) three and CPI(M), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and People’s Conference ( PC) won one seat each. Independent candidates have seven seats, six of which have joined the National Conference.

The NC has formed the government under Omar Abdullah with the support of Congress, six independents, one CPI(M) and one AAP candidate.

Congress, CPI(M) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have not joined the government. Congress has said that it will not join the Jammu and Kashmir government until statehood is restored.

The Jammu and Kashmir cabinet headed by Omar Abdullah passed a proposal to restore statehood in its first meeting. Omar Abdullah went to Delhi and handed over a copy of this proposal to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The National Conference has also decided to bring a proposal for the restoration of Article 370 in the Assembly session starting from November 4.