Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday said the legislators who betrayed his party in Friday’s Rajya Sabha elections had been identified but refused to divulge their names, seen as an attempt to pressure them to come clean about their alleged deceit.

Omar gave a clean chit to National Conference legislators and publicly expressed gratitude to the Congress for its support, suggesting they had no role in the cross-voting.

However, he was evasive in acknowledging the support of the Peoples Democratic Party and dropped hints that Independents aligned to his party could have “betrayed” his party.

Separately, his father and NC chief Farooq Abdullah, however, thanked the Congress, PDP and Independents for their support and said such things (cross-voting) happened in elections.

The NC on Friday won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats from Jammu and Kashmir, but its outreach to INDIA allies failed to deliver the expected clean sweep — helping the BJP win the fourth seat, aided apparently by cross-voting from some INDIA members or Independents who had pledged support to the ruling party.

Omar on Saturday said nobody should have a complaint with the results.

“But as I said on X, we saw betrayal from some places at the 11th hour. Almost everybody knows the names of those who betrayed us. I don’t think it is important to repeat it here. But it is regretful. I thank those people, particularly the Congress and other friends who voted for the NC,” he told reporters in Srinagar.

The chief minister said he was satisfied that no NC vote went “here or there”.

“All (NC) voters showed their polling slips to our chief agent and not one vote of the National Conference was wasted,” he said.

Asked whether he would thank the PDP for their support, Omar was evasive and said he would thank everyone who made efforts for the success of his candidates.

Omar was also asked about the BJP’s purported claim that four legislators supported them and next time the number would shoot up to 40.

“There is no concern. The concern is (only this) that those people who stayed with us, participated in our meetings, ate our food, joined hands with the BJP. It was good that they said openly that we want to help the BJP,” he said.

BJP candidate Sat Sharma on Friday got four more votes than his party’s strength of 28 MLAs, winning the fourth seat. His NC rival Imran Nabi Dar bagged only 21, suggesting a deliberate cross-voting or invalidation of votes to help the BJP.

Omar claimed Handwara MLA Sajad Lone, the only one to abstain, did it to help the BJP, praising him for allegedly doing it publicly. Lone has rebuffed allegations and accused the NC of helping the BJP on one seat.