Today, 15 August 2025, for India’s 79th Independence Day celebrations, Omar Abdullah became the first elected chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in eight years to unfurl the national flag at Bakshi stadium, Srinagar — even as the loss of statehood continues to rankle.

The last CM to preside over this most important annual function was PDP president Mehbooba Mufti, who led the state last in 2017. The PDP–BJP coalition government fell after the saffron party withdrew its support in June 2018 — and imposed Governor’s rule in the erstwhile state.

There was no elected government for over a year, as Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories in August 2019, following the reading down of Article 370, which gave the erstwhile state special status within the Indian Constitution.

As a result, not a chief minister but the governor of the state unfurled the national flag for Independence Day and Republic Day in 2018 and 2019, and the honours were done by the lieutenant governor of the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir (sans Ladakh now) from 2020 to 2024.

Today, a rueful Abdullah recalled that when he himself last spoke on such an occasion as chief minister, “We had our own identity in the country, a Constitution, a flag… and statehood.”