Challenges galore as Omar Abdullah govt braces for first J&K assembly session

Omar Abdullah’s oath-taking as chief minister, alongside five ministers, on October 16 marked the appointment of the first elected government in Jammu and Kashmir in a decade, the transition assuming great significance since it ended direct central rule running since the collapse of the Peoples Democratic Party-BJP coalition regime in June 2018.
Since then, the state of J&K had been under president’s rule and was downgraded to Union territory status with the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019.
With 42 of the total 90 legislative assembly seats with the NC, and the backing of ally Congress (six MLAs) and five Independents, the Abdullah government has a definitive majority. The BJP is the principal Opposition force.
Jammu, which accounts for 43 seats, elected BJP candidates in all 29 seats the party contested. This is four more than the party’s tally in 2014. While this has raised questions about the region’s underrepresentation in the government, Abdullah has assured that his regime will be as much a voice for the people of Jammu as the Kashmir Valley.
The NC secured seven seats in Jammu, mainly in the mountainous Pir Panjal region that predominantly has a Gujjar and Pahadi population. The Congress suffered a historic drubbing, winning just one of the 29 seats it contested in the region. Its other five seats came from the Valley.
The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which governs the Union territory, mandates that the council of ministers not exceed 10 per cent of the legislative assembly’s strength. It means Abdullah can have no more than eight cabinet colleagues. The chief minister has balanced the representation by allotting the deputy chief minister’s post to the NC’s Surinder Kumar Choudhary from the Jammu region. Choudhary defeated the BJP’s J&K president Ravinder Raina in Nowshera constituency of Rajouri by over 7,000 votes.
Abdullah has allotted two more cabinet berths to Jammu—his party’s Javed Ahmed Rana and independent MLA Satish Sharma. Two ministerial berths have gone to Kashmir—Sakeena Masood Itoo and Javid Ahmad Dar, both of the NC. The remaining three cabinet positions are vacant as of now, with plans to reportedly pick one minister from Jammu and the other two from Kashmir, in an attempt to maintain regional balance.
While the Congress has stayed out of the government, citing restoration of J&K’s statehood as a prerequisite, sources attribute the decision to a lack of consensus over the lone cabinet berth offered to the party. The party has three strong contenders: J&K unit chief Tariq Hameed Karra, AICC (All India Congress Committee) general secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir and veteran leader Peerzada Mohammad Syed.
Mir has been nominated as the Congress’s legislature party leader, but the trio is vying for entry into the cabinet. “We’re trying to build pressure on the central government for restoration of statehood. But this doesn’t mean we won’t take a ministerial berth,” Karra clarified to INDIA TODAY.
The Congress offering outside support to the government is being seen by experts as a cautious move in keeping with the upcoming elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, as its below-than-expected performance in the traditional stronghold of Jammu is being read as the Hindu-majority region’s mood, particularly in the context of ally NC and its advocacy of restoration of J&K’s special status.
Amid this, the Abdullah government is bracing for major challenges, including implementing the ‘12 guarantees’ made in the manifesto. Just before the government assumed office, the administration led by lieutenant governor Sinha clipped the powers of recruitment of the new regime, mandating that corporations, public sector undertakings, boards and companies owned or controlled by the government recruit through the J&K Service Selection Board only. This may well be a blow to the NC’s promise of filling up all government vacancies within 180 days of assuming power, besides creating 100,000 jobs.
Aware of the enormous challenges ahead, NC president Farooq Abdullah has described the chief ministership as a ‘crown of thorns’. “The state is full of challenges. I hope this government will do what it promised in the election manifesto,” said Farooq, a three-time chief minister of J&K.
This is the reason Omar had been ‘realistic’ in his approach while the election manifesto was being drafted. He, according to NC leaders, was wary of promising anything that would be beyond the government’s domain. For instance, several leaders wanted that voters be promised 200 units of free electricity every month. “But Omar Abdullah did not agree,” says an MLA of the party. “Even on other issues, he does not believe in populism. His guiding principle is to be genuine and sincere.”
Expectations from both the government and the MLAs are high. The civil secretariat is bustling with energy ever since the new legislators took oath and is witnessing long queues of people with grievances all through the day.
Abdullah, amid this, went to Delhi on October 24 with a J&K cabinet resolution on statehood. He also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari. The meetings were significant in view of the ostensible bitterness between the BJP-led Union government and the NC in the past five years since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution.
According to sources, the back-to-back meetings, in which prized Kashmiri shawls and multi-coloured bouquets were offered, were held in a ‘warm atmosphere’, and that’s what prompted Abdullah, on his return, to signal assurances at the ‘highest level’ on statehood restoration.
“Some people may try to exploit the system we have in J&K at the moment and find loopholes in it. But this is very much a temporary phase. Once full statehood is restored, there will be no loopholes to exploit,” Abdullah significantly said on October 29 during his address to administrative secretaries. This is being seen as his bid to tighten grip on bureaucrats who currently fall under the lieutenant governor’s office.
All eyes are now on the first session of the legislative assembly set to begin on November 4. It will be a five-day affair, as per the initial calendar. Top sources said the major highlight of the session was expected to be a resolution being moved against the abrogation of Article 370, in line with the NC’s poll promises.
The Opposition BJP, with 29 legislators, will oppose the resolution. “If the government insists on this, we will oppose it,” Ashok Koul, the BJP’s general secretary in J&K, said on October 29.
The Abdullah government, as per sources, is also likely to take up in the assembly reinstatement of the ‘Darbar move’, the biannual practice of shifting the administration between the summer and winter capitals—Srinagar and Jammu. Started in 1872 under Maharaja Ranbir Singh’s rule, the practice was abolished in 2021 by the Sinha-led administration.
Meanwhile, the five reserved seats, which will increase the legislative assembly strength to 95, are likely to be nominated by the lieutenant governor soon. As per rules, three of them need to be women. Sources said one seat might go to a local woman candidate of the Janata Dal United, a key ally of the Modi government.