Omar Abdullah completes a year in office but no statehood
Srinagar, Oct 16: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday completed one year in office, but the restoration of statehood, his key election promise, is still not within sight.
Abdullah was sworn in as the first chief minister of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir on October 16 last year after his party secured a landslide win in the assembly elections, the party’s first in about a decade.
Most promises of Abdullah’s party, the National Conference, remain unfulfilled.
In its manifesto ‘Dignity, Identity and Development,’ the party promised to strive for the full implementation of the Autonomy Resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2000, and restore the status quo with respect to Articles 370 and 35A, and statehood to pre-August 5, 2019.
The party promised that in the interim period, it would endeavour to redraw the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, and the Transaction of Business of the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Rules, 2019.
The manifesto said the party will make efforts to modify, annul, and repeal post-August 5, 2019, laws that impact the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and protect the land and employment rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, in the first year, the NC government has not been able to do much on these promises. The exceptions: a resolution in its first cabinet meeting calling for restoration of J-K’s statehood, and another resolution in the assembly asking the Centre to work out a constitutional mechanism to restore the special status of the erstwhile state.
The government faces criticism from the valley-based opposition parties as well as from within its own ranks, which have accused it of doing nothing and only appeasing New Delhi and the BJP.
The party’s Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar, Ruhullah Mehdi, conceded that the government had failed on the political front.
“Whatever needed to be done on the political front has not happened. There was a need to show intent, but I personally feel that has not been shown till now,” Mehdi said recently.
The ruling party, however, maintains that it has still made the lives of the masses easier, even with limited powers.
The party said it raised the marriage assistance fund from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 for poor brides, extended free bus service for women across districts, launched an inter-district smart bus service, restored the academic session to October-November, relaxed stamp duties for blood relations buying land or transferring property, and gave free ration to economically weaker sections.
The chief minister often blames the division of power between the elected government and the Lt Governor for his government’s limitations.
Many challenges the government has faced over the last year persist.
The April 22 Pahalgam terror attack came as a major setback to the economy of Jammu and Kashmir and sucked the valley dry of tourists.
The India-Pakistan conflict that came in the wake of the attack in May brought more hardship to the locals, especially in the border areas, where they bore the most brunt of the shelling from across. Several died in the bombardment that came with Operation Sindoor.
As the government launched a campaign to bring tourists back to Kashmir, rains and flash floods racked the region even further, narrowing any possibility of revival of tourism before the onset of winter.
The Abdullah government faces yet more criticism for not deciding on the existing reservation policy, which has reduced the general category quota in government jobs and college admissions to 30 per cent.
A cabinet sub-committee was formed in December last year following student protests. While that subcommittee submitted its report four months ago, nothing substantial has come out of it yet.
