The National Conference is against its former president and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah joining the Union Cabinet.

Dr Abdullah, who is at present in London, is among those expected to be inducted into the Union Cabinet.

Most of the senior National Conference leaders believe that the party's proximity to the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party hit its prospects in the recent assembly elections.

Their belief is that the People's Democratic Party won the election by projecting a 'radical centrist agenda'.

"It has been unanimously decided that Dr Farooq Abdullah should not join the Union Cabinet," party president Omar Abdullah said after a recent legislature party meeting.

Instead, party leaders want Dr Abdullah to reinvigorate the party's ground-level apparatus whose inability to identify with the sentiments of the people resulted in a poor showing at the hustings.

"If the intention was to have a ministerial berth, why should Omar Abdullah have resigned from the Union ministry?" senior party leader and former minister Ali Mohammad Sagar pointed out.

"We will discuss the issue at the next working committee meeting in Jammu," he added.