Srinagar: The ruling National Conference (NC) in Jammu and Kashmir has called a meeting of its legislative party on Friday (April 4) after lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha ordered a reshuffle in the Union Territory’s higher administration earlier this week.
The ruling party has taken exception to an order issued on Tuesday by the J&K General Administration Department (GAD), purportedly without the knowledge of the chief minister, transferring several Jammu Kashmir Administrative Services (JKAS) officers posted in different parts of the Union Territory.
In a letter to the ruling party legislators on Wednesday (April 3), senior NC leader and chief whip Mubarik Gul said that chief minister Omar Abdullah was scheduled to chair a legislative party meeting at 11 am at the residence of deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary in Srinagar.
“Keeping in view the importance of the meeting, all honourable members are requested to kindly make it convenient to attend the meeting,” Gul said.
Senior NC leader and party spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar told The Wire that a number of issues were going to be taken up in the meeting, “The issue of transfers (by the LG) is one of them,” he said.
The development took place two days after the GAD order was issued under which 48 senior JKAS officers, including additional deputy commissioners of all the districts of J&K and some sub-divisional magistrates, were transferred.
The order angered the ruling party which viewed it as an attempt to undermine the popular mandate that propelled the party to power in the assembly election last year. According to some reports, the party has said that it was going to raise the issue with the Union home ministry as well.
The opposition has, however, dubbed the development as “theatrics” by the NC which “surrendered its huge mandate for the crumbs of power” after the Abdullah government was sworn into office last year.
Senior People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader Naeem Akhtar said that the NC has “no leeway to do anything except accepting every new situation” after the Abdullah government assumed office in October last year.
“They did so [by forming the government] as the first act of surrender after receiving a huge and unprecedented victory. For once their voters had taken a well considered decision to back them as an act of defiance and resistance. Now it is too late even for course correction,” former J&K minister Akhtar said.
Professor Noor Ahmed Baba, former Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Kashmir, remarked that the GAD order, issued without the elected government’s knowledge, not only underscores its dispensability but also highlights the ambiguity regarding administrative authority within the Union Territory.
“In a democratic setup, the elected government should have the power to manage and regulate local administration,” he noted. “While the LG represents the Centre, the popular mandate rests with the elected government.”
He further stated that unless full statehood is restored, this ambiguity will persist, leaving the elected government of Jammu & Kashmir with a continued sense of powerlessness under the existing legal and political framework. He added that the Abdullah government will struggle to assert its authority under the current arrangement, as its actions and performance will remain contingent on the goodwill and discretion of the Union government.
Jammu-based senior political analyst Zaffar Choudhary said that the Union Territory model of J&K empowered the LG to transfer officers of all ranks.
“The LG is drawing his powers from the written text stemming from the events of August 2019, which no one should pretend to be oblivious of. If nothing has been imagined, conceived or planned, leave aside done, to change the terms of engagement, then there is also no point for any knee-jerk reaction,” he said in a post on X.
Following the amendment of the business rules under J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 ahead of the assembly election last year, the Union home ministry empowered the LG’s office to have the final say only in the matters of law and order, prosecution and higher bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the Raj Bhawan effectively controls all the departments in J&K through the Indian Administrative Service officers who are answerable only to the LG under what the ruling party has termed as “dual governance” structure of J&K.
“After six months of experimenting with a model of governance that hasn’t been used before anywhere in India, this may be a good time (for the NC) to do some reflections and take a longer view of the political scenario, Choudhary added.
This is not the first time that the Raj Bhavan and the chief minister’s office in J&K have been on a collision course over the transfers of officials in J&K. In December last year, the LG ordered the transfer of JKAS officer Vishesh Mahajan which was rescinded following the intervention of the chief minister’s office.
Earlier, Abdullah’s move to retain D.C. Raina as Advocate General of J&K after he became the chief minister was turned down by the Raj Bhavan.
