SRINAGAR, (India) Oct 17: The Indian government late on Thursday imposed direct federal rule in its zone of Kashmir, where recent legislative polls led to a fractured verdict, officials here said.

The officials said the step followed a refusal by outgoing chief minister Farooq Abdullah to remain as caretaker head of the state administration after midnight Thursday (1830 GMT).

“Since outgoing chief minister Abdullah refused to continue at the post the state is being brought under direct governor’s rule,” an official from the governor’s office told AFP in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

State Governor Girish Chandra Saxena had extended until Monday a deadline for the various contending political parties to forge a coalition to stake a claim to the 87-seat Kashmir assembly.

Abdullah’s National Conference party emerged as the largest party seats from the four-phase polls which ended October 8 with 28 seats but fell short of the 44 needed to form a government.

India’s national Congress party and the regional People’s Democratic Party, which have taken a softer line on the 13-year separatist conflict in the troubled state, were the big winners in the polls. But the two parties have not reached a power-sharing agreement, with both of their leaders wanting Abdullah’s job.—AFP