National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah claimed on Friday that his decision to contest two Assembly seats — Ganderbal and Budgam — was aimed at “exposing” Delhi’s “plot” to field jailed entities against him to have him defeated.

Omar lost the Baramulla parliamentary seat this summer to Sheikh Abdul “Engineer” Rashid, who has been in Tihar jail on terror-funding charges since 2019.

On Thursday, nomination papers for another jailed separatist, Sarjan Ahmad Wagay, also known as Sarjan Barkati, who was one of the leaders of the protests following the killing of young Hizb commander Burhan Wani, were filed from the Ganderbal and Beerwah Assembly constituencies. Omar was elected from Beerwah in the last Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014. He won from Ganderbal in 2008.

Barkati’s nomination papers from Zainapora, his home constituency, were rejected on the ground that he failed to produce an “oath certificate” and some other documents on time.

In addition to Barkati, Congress's Ganderbal chief Saahil Farooq has defied his party and decided to contest against Omar.

Omar said when news started floating that another jailed politician (Barkati) was contesting from Ganderbal, he was forced to think why “they” (Delhi) were fielding them against him.

“They were brought from jail to fight against me. Is there any conspiracy, I thought to myself. I can think of Baramulla… he (Engineer Rashid) was from there. But when no one was in jail from Ganderbal to fight me, a guy from Zainapora in Shopian was brought. I still thought it was happening on its own,” he said.

“Then I consulted a few friends and told them I wanted to prove it is Delhi's conspiracy and there was only one way (which is that) I will fight from another seat but we will not tell people which seat. (I said) we will get papers from one or two places and decide in the morning to file the paper at one place. Yesterday, it was proven that people from jail are being brought to fight me.”

Omar argued this was no ordinary thing, alleging that Delhi was trying to trap him. “They (Barkati’s people) filed papers from Beerwah, I filed my papers from Budgam. They got caught because they had made preparations from Beerwah. This is proof that in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly Kashmir, Delhi is not trying to silence any politician other than me,” Omar held.

Referring to his defeat at Engineer Rashid’s hands, Omar said: “At that time I did not think it was dangerous. I thought he had fought elections in the past. He tried his luck and won. I stopped thinking about it. I did not see it as a conspiracy, an agenda of Delhi. I thought I had bad luck and he had good luck.”

The former chief minister said Delhi was against him because he represented the sentiments of the people. He said when he spread his cap before the people (on Wednesday) and asked them to protect his honour, he was not talking about his honour alone but the honour of all residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

“I fully understand that my respect is yours and your respect is mine. If your respect is wounded, how can my respect be safe? When I fight, I do not fight for myself, or my home, it is for Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.