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Srinagar, Sunday (AFP)

The chief minister of Indian Kashmir Farooq Abdullah will not stand in upcoming polls in the state, instead nominating his son to contest them from his constituency, party officials said.

Abdullah's son Omar, who is India's junior foreign minister, was nominated by Kashmir's ruling National Conference (NC) party as their candidate for the Gandherbal constituency in Srinagar, the state's summer capital.

Gandherbal has elected Farooq Abdullah to the state legislature three times - in 1983, 1987 and 1996.

Before 1983, Gandherbal was the constituency of Abdullah's father, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah, who founded the NC and was known as the "Lion of Kashmir".

The decision to field Omar from Gandherbal was taken after Farooq Abdullah told the NC's central election committee that he wanted his son to assume the mantle of chief minister, a senior party leader told AFP.

The elections are due to take place in four phases beginning on September 16.

Omar, 32, was among the 27 people named as candidates for the second phase of voting in Kashmir on September 24.

In June, Farooq Abdullah quit as the head of the NC in favour of Omar and said he would retire from politics after the polls.

On Saturday Omar told reporters that his father would represent the party, which is part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) federal coalition, in India's upper house of parliament.

An upper house seat representing the Ladakh region of Kashmir is falling vacant in November.

Abdullah had hoped to become India's vice president, but the election of Abul Kalam as president last month was a death-blow to Abdullah's dream as India has never had both a Muslim president and vice president.

Omar said he would be resigning his post as junior foreign minister, which could pave the way for his father to join the federal cabinet.

"I will be resigning from my post, but I can't give you the timing," he said, adding his father would be the "star attraction" during the ruling party's election campaign.

Meanwhile some 30,000 Indian paramilitary forces and police commandos have arrived in Kashmir to provide security for the state elections starting next month, police said.

Already 10,000 police officials are providing security to certain "protected persons" including political leaders, bureaucrats, journalists and businessmen, a state police spokesman said.

The new guards will give security to candidates, political leaders and voters.

Security arrangements for the poll will be supervised by the police chief in each district while the security of polling stations will be handed to paramilitary forces, the spokesman said.

The strength of the state police has increased from 23,000 in 1990 to more than 60,000 in 2002, but the state authorities still need additional forces from the federal government for the election in the insurgency-ravaged state.

"The challenge posed by separatists and the rebels is enormous when they have announced to wreck the polling," a senior police officer said.

"In the militancy-disturbed areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts, 20,000 men of the paramilitary forces and police commandos (from the state of Punjab) have been sent to provide security cover to the candidates and prevent rebels from storming the polling stations," he said.

According to Kashmir's Chief Electoral Officer Pramod Jain, security forces were deployed in the 26 assembly constituencies 45 days before polling.

"The very purpose of holding the poll in four phases was to allow time to the security forces to cover all areas while voting took place.

Meanwhile an influential separatist group two of whose leaders have left the party to fight upcoming state polls in Kashmir was plunged into crisis with a row between two factions.

Two members of the Peoples Conference (PC) - Ghulam Mohiudin Sofi and Abdul Rashid Mirchal - resigned from the party on Thursday in a surprise move and filed election papers as independent candidates in the northern Kupwara district.

Virtually all separatists have decided to boycott the election, because they say it is not a solution to the Kashmir dispute.

Kashmir's main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference, has called for a boycott of the polls and Muslim rebels opposed to Indian rule in the state have vowed to sabotage them.

The PC is an important member of the Hurriyat. Its founder Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in May.

The party hurriedly nominated Lone's younger son Sajjad Lone as the new chairman.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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