National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, who is set to don the mantle of chief minister on Monday, has a difficult road ahead with terrorism as well as growing regional and urban-rural divide in Jammu and Kashmir certain to be high on his agenda.

Omar, the third generation Abdullah family member and youngest chief minister of the border state, also faces high expectations of people besides having to deal with a strong opposition in the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The 38-year-old leader is perhaps the first chief minister who will have to grapple with an alarming rise in regional divide in the state since Independence. No other government head including his father Farooq Abdullah and grandfather Sheikh Abdullah had faced such a dicey situation, say political analysts.

"There was no regional divide between Jammu and Kashmir regions as it is today as reflected in the poll results. Omar is the first CM of J&K to face this challenge," said Prof Amitabh Mattoo, a member of National Knowledge Commission (NKC) and former vice chancellor of Jammu University.

Electoral results have shown a huge divide between the regions due to polarisation in the wake of the two-month Amarnath Yatra land controversy. Divisive politics also divided south and central Kashmir on city (NC) versus village (PDP) lines, analysts said.