Srinagar, October 25
Describing the victory of the PDP-Congress coalition in the by-elections to four assembly constituencies as an endorsement of the policies of the coalition government, the Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, today said this had increased the responsibility of the partners.

Mufti Sayeed was replying to questions from mediapersons after taking oath as member of the State Legislative Assembly here following his victory from the Pahalgam constituency in south Kashmir. The by-election was necessitated in the wake of Ms Mehbooba Mufti getting elected to the Lok Sabha from the Anantnag parliamentary segment.

The Speaker, Mr Tara Chand, administered the oath of office to Mufti Sayeed and three others, Mr Tariq Hamid Qarra (PDP), Mr Sham Lal Sharma and Ms Kanta Andotra (both Congress). They were elected from the Batamaloo, Akhnoor and Basohli assembly segments, respectively.

The Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Mangat Ram Sharma, members of Parliament Chowdhary Lal Singh and Madan Lal Sharma, were among those present on the occasion.

When asked about the boycott of today's function by the Opposition National Conference members, the Chief Minister said when the National Conference "wins elections, they feel good, but do not accept defeat".

He claimed that in the Batamaloo constituency over 13,000 voters had exercised their franchise as against only 4,000 in the last election, which indicated that the mind of the people had changed.

On yesterday's attack on NC President Omar Abdullah in Anantnag, the Chief Minister said such incidents had been taking place in the valley since quite some time. He mentioned three attacks made by militants on various occasions. One on his rally at Beerwah last year, rifle grenade attacks when he was filing nomination papers in Anantnag last month, and one at a public meeting in Verinag in Anantnag district last year in which Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma had a narrow escape while another minister was injured.

The Chief Minister also referred to the killing of two National Conference ministers in militant attacks. He claimed the situation had changed a lot and said 101 political workers had been killed by militants during the past two years of his government, while 208 workers were killed in the previous two years of NC rule.

About the security arrangements made on the eve of Mr Omar Abdullah's visit to Sarnal, Anantnag, the Mufti said "foolproof" arrangements had been made. He said former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah had been given security on a par with the Chief Minister. He said he did not know if visiting the graveyard was in the scheduled programme of Mr Abdullah.

He said it was irresponsible of Mr Abdullah to have accused the government for the mine blast. The government had deployed the largest number of security personnel for the protection of the National Conference leaders, followed by the Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party.