At a workers' meeting in Ganderbal, Abdullah made a heartfelt plea, saying, “My honour lies in your hands,” as he held his cap in his palms.

When Omar Abdullah took on the mantle of the NC from his father in 2002, he contested the assembly polls from Ganderbal but was defeated by the PDP's Qazi Mohammad Afzal. He, however, wrested the seat from Afzal in the 2008 polls and went on to become the youngest chief minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The constituency has been represented by the three generations of the Abdullahs comprising founder Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah