Jehangir Ali 
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah will meet the Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday in Delhi amid speculations that the Union government has finalised the business rules for the union territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting comes at a time when the elected government in J&K, led by Abdullah, seems to be on a collision course with lieutenant governor (LG) Manoj Sinha’s office in the absence of business rules for Jammu and Kashmir.
The rules are likely to be notified by the Ministry of Home Affairs towards the end of this month, sources said.
Ahead of his meeting with Shah, Abdullah struck a conciliatory tone during a one-on-one debate on a live news show which was broadcast by a private cable TV network last week.
Asked whether LG Sinha was “intervening” in his work, Abdullah obliquely admitted to the differences with the Raj Bhawan, stating that he was going to raise the “issue” in his meeting with the home minister before speaking about it publicly.
A visibly peeved Abdullah also said that the home ministry was soon going to start the process of “consultation” for the restoration of J&K’s statehood.
“I don’t interfere with the work of LG,” he said, “I respect my boundaries and others should work within the limits of their boundaries too. I am ready to work in the (new) system (of union territory) but we have to understand our responsibilities under the J&K Reorganisation Act”.
Introduced by Shah on August 5, 2019, and passed by the parliament, the J&K Reorganisation Act 2019 bifurcated and downgraded Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories. The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The Act empowers the lieutenant governor to make business rules “on the advice of the Council of Ministers” and the “procedure to be adopted in case of a difference of opinion between the Lieutenant Governor and the Council” on these rules.
Political observers believe that even though the extraordinary powers granted to the LG on the issue of business rules have been clearly spelled out in the J&K Reorganisation Act, Abdullah could be driving a hard bargain for more administrative powers for the elected government in the new business rules.
More than two months have passed since Abdullah was sworn in as the chief minister but his government is yet to get a grip on the issues of governance and administration in the union territory.
Following a recent amendment to the business rules, the Union government tightened its hold on J&K by keeping law and order, prosecutions and the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre along with the appointment of advocate general and other law officers under the control of Raj Bhawan.
All the administrative departments in Jammu and Kashmir are headed by IAS officers who, by virtue of nonexistent business rules, are answerable to the LG’s office, giving rise to a ‘dual governance’ system which has been dubbed by Abdullah as a “recipe for disaster”.
Earlier, in what was seen as an affront by the elected government, LG Sinha chaired two key meetings to review the progress of developmental projects and government schemes in Jammu and Kashmir after Abdullah was sworn into office.
On the other hand, the chief minister failed to prevail on the Raj Bhawan to continue the services of D C Raina, J&K’s advocate general, appointed by Governor Satya Pal Malik, who submitted his resignation on October 19.
In the meantime, the recently elected lawmakers are struggling to fill the void created by more than six years of bureaucratic rule in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a video which went viral on social media, Dr Bashir Veeri, a lawmaker of the ruling party from south Kashmir’s Bijbehara constituency, vowed to file a Right To Information (RTI) application after a low-rung power department official failed to turn up for a public meeting.
In another video, Veeri, a former member of J&K legislative council, was heard telling a reporter, while on a visit to Sharkas Bridge in his Bijbehara constituency, that the government officials were allegedly harassing the public by unauthorisedly visiting their homes to please their “lords”.
“Be it commissioner secretary or any other secretary, this lordship system is not going to work for long. We are not living in colonial rule. People have chosen us as their representatives. They (government officials) should be receptive to public needs and demands, otherwise they will have to regret it later,” said Veeri, who defeated Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti’s daughter Iltija Mufti in the recent election.