Jammu And Kashmir Chief Minister May Resign on Saturday NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, who is on a collision course with main alliance partner, the Congress, may resign on Saturday. The tiff is a result of differences between the two over setting up of new administrative units in the state, a top government source told HT. “A cabinet meeting is scheduled for Saturday over the administrative units and if a decision is not taken the same day, it could all unravel within hours,’’ the official said. “The CM insists that the cabinet sub-committee submit its recommendations on the units at the meeting.” However, hectic parleys were on in Delhi, between UPA minister Farooq Abdullah and senior Congress leaders to defuse the political crisis. Though Abdullah Senior insisted his son Omar Abdullah was free to take “his own decisions”, sources said he had invoked the intervention of 10 Janpath. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has directed the party to “extend support to the Omar-led government”, they claimed. “I have not spoken to anybody. The decision is entirely Omar Abdullah’s,” Farooq Abdullah told HT. Sources reveal that one way of averting the deadlock in the alliance is for the NC to agree to the Congress’ demand of setting up of 2,000 administrative units instead of 900 proposed earlier. The five-year-old National Conference-Congress alliance in J&K is under threat after the latter’s reluctance to approve the setting up of the administrative units. The issued has been deliberated upon for more than three years now. The Mushtaq Ahmad Ganai committee had proposed the setting up of 900 new units in Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir. While CM Omar Abdullah has been pushing for a cabinet clearance on the setting up of these units, the Congress has been stalling it on the grounds that a cabinet sub-committee, which visited 20 districts to seek the views of the public, should not rush with the decision. State Congress chief Saifuddin Soz told HT on Wednesday that they “are not against administrative units but want to ensure justice to all three regions of the state”. “We want the alliance with the National Conference to continue, but this exercise (setting up of new units) should not be rushed through,” he said. The NC believes the Congress’ opposition to the move stems from the fact that it wants to deny them the credit of pushing it through, just ahead of Lok Sabha elections and state assembly polls later this year. The setting up of administrative units is said to be a people-friendly move which is aimed at grievance redressal. The formation of the units will bring district and sub-district governance closer to the people. For instance, people will have to travel only 20 to 30 km instead of 80 to 90 km to meet block development officials after the step is taken. The posturing is testing the coalition just ahead of the elections and is also aimed at ‘vote gathering’, as an NC leader put it. A split between the NC and the Congress could also be an attempt at appealing to their respective constituencies, in Kashmir and Jammu. Abdullah, when contacted, refused to comment on plans to resign on Saturday. Asked if his party would enter into a pre-poll alliance with the UPA, he said, “The NC has authorised Farooq Abdullah to take a final decision on the alliance.’’ The J&K CM, insiders insist, is not willing to give the cabinet sub-committee any more time to submit its recommendations on the administrative units. The report was due last week on January 23, when he reluctantly granted an extension till February 1. In a tweet on January 23, he said, “The Cabinet sub-committee for new administrative units met me requesting one last week more to complete their recommendations. I rather reluctantly gave them this one week but I have told them there will be no other cabinet agenda taken up and no further extension. It’s unfortunate that this exercise has been on since June. I am determined to complete this important public demand no matter what.”
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 04:29:46 +0000
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