Agencies:

The former J&K CM said he still fails to understand the need to downgrade the state into a union territory, 'except to punish the people of the state'.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah has vowed not to contest any Assembly elections till J&K remains a union territory as he hit out at the Narendra Modi government for the complete dilution of the �indispensable� Article 370 of the Constitution.

�Having been a member of the most empowered Assembly in the land and that too, as the leader of that Assembly for six years, I simply cannot and will not be a member of a House that has been dis empowered the way ours has,� Umar Abdullah wrote as the revocation of the erstwhile state�s special status nears its first anniversary.

The NC Vice-President accepted that the BJP pushing through with the removal of Article 370 and with it Article 35-A, was not a complete surprise, but he said was came as an absolute shock was that the state was downgraded and split into two Union Territories.