Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday expressed hope that Jammu and Kashmir’s Union Territory status is a temporary phase and that the central government fulfils its promise of restoring its statehood. “For us, the biggest challenge is to get our statehood back. We the people are now expecting that the promises made to us will be fulfilled. The biggest promise is the restoration of statehood,” he said.

“The Supreme Court in its judgement had also stated that the statehood should be restored as soon as possible. One year has passed since and we think one year should be enough,” said Abdullah. “It has been a little over two months since we came to power. It took us time to understand how the UT government works. We have been associated with the government earlier, but there is a vast difference between that form and the present form,” Abdullah said.