Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha has invited National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah to form a government in the Union territory.
According to a letter to Abdullah from the Raj Bhawan, Sinha will administer the oaths of office and secrecy to Abdullah and his council of ministers on Wednesday at Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre.
The letter on Monday (October 14) said that Sinha was informed of Abdullah being elected the NC legislature party leader and that he had the support of allies such as the Congress and others.
Sinha wished Abdullah “a highly productive tenure and success in your endeavours in the best interest of the people of Jammu and Kashmir”.
His decision comes soon after the Union government cleared the deck for J&K to have its first elected government in six years by revoking Union rule in the territory.
Earlier in the day, political sources said deliberations were underway for choosing the venue of the oath-taking ceremony, which will take place after a ceremonial meeting between Abdullah and Sinha. The ceremony will be followed by the distribution of portfolios, after which the elected government will assume office.
While the cabinet is going to be dominated by the NC, which won 42 out of 90 seats in the assembly election, the Congress, which has six legislators, will get at least two berths. Two more legislators from Jammu are going to be part of the government for “giving equal representation” to the Hindu majority region.
“Negotiations are underway for the post of speaker and deputy speaker of the assembly who are likely to be from the Congress camp,” sources said.
On Sunday evening, President Droupadi Murmu revoked Union government rule in J&K through an order.
The order said, “In exercise of the powers conferred by section 73 of the Jammu and and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 (34 of 2019) read with articles 239 and 239A of the Constitution of India, the Order dated the 31st October, 2019 in relation to the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir shall stand revoked immediately before the appointment of the Chief Minister under section 54 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.”
On October 31, 2019, more than three months after Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated, central rule was imposed in the region which was already reeling under political uncertainty after the collapse of the People’s Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party (PDP-BJP) coalition government in 2018.
In 2019, the Union government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir by reading down Article 370 and promulgating The J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 under which the erstwhile state was downgraded into two Union Territories
At the time, Abdullah – who is set to become the first chief minister of the UT – was among two other former chief ministers and a host of politicians, separatists, political activists, lawyers and academics who were put in preventive detention amid fears of widespread protests against the Union government’s move.
Section 54 of The J&K Reorganisation Act states that J&K’s chief minister would be appointed by the LG while other ministers shall be appointed by the LG on the CM’s ‘advice’. “The Ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Lieutenant Governor,” the act states.
Abdullah, who won from Ganderbal and Budgam assembly constituencies, met Sinha at the Raj Bhawan in Srinagar on October 11, Friday, to hand over the letters of support from his allies.
A photograph of the meeting released by the Raj Bhawan showed Abdullah handing a folder to Sinha with the two men posing for the cameras with serious faces which, for some observers, illustrated the tensions which are going to define the relationship between the Raj Bhawan and the chief minister’s office in the coming days.
Sources said that the letters of support handed by Abdullah were dispatched to the Union government and the process to give J&K its first elected government as a Union Territory was set in motion by President Murmu’s order.
Abdullah’s party fell short of majority in the recently concluded assembly election, held after a decade, but with Congress’s six seats and Communist Party of India (M)’s one seat, the INDIA bloc has a comfortable majority of 49 in J&K assembly.
However, the J&K Reorganisation Act has empowered the LG to appoint five more members with voting rights to the assembly which triggered a political storm in Jammu and Kashmir after the election results were declared last week.
The NC has claimed that the chief minister, being the head of the elected government, was empowered to nominate the new members while accusing the LG administration and the BJP-led Union government of fiddling with the democratic mandate.
Although the addition of five more members to the legislative assembly would push the majority mark from 46 to 48, it is unlikely to change the electoral arithmetic for the INDIA bloc which also has the support of the Aam Aadmi Party and some independent candidates.
