Coalition partners pulling in different directions

Hassan Mir projects ‘sex scam-tainted’ bureaucrat as CS; Mustafa Kamal, Sham Lal trade fire on key issues

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Dec 15: Attrition and acrimony between the ruling coalition partners, National Conference and Congress, does not seem to be as revealing as it was between PDP and Congress towards the completion of one-third of the previous coalition regime. At this stage, nobody can compare it to the day when Mufti called back a helicopter from Amarnath Cave and forced two of the Congress Ministers, Yogesh Sawhney and Gharu Ram, alongwith their wives, to spend the night there without shelter and security. Observers were sceptical about Mufti-Azad tie-up but most of them believed that PDP-Congress coalition would last for six full years. It did not.

A couple of days after Sham Lal’s diatribe against the “Kashmir-dominated dispensation” in Bani, Minister of Health shared stage with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at a different place. Both ignored the political tremors generated by Sham’s controversial statement. Relationship between the coalition partners appeared to be equally undisturbed when Omar made a controversial statement with regard to the state’s accession to India in Legislative Assembly in Srinagar.

Much like PDP-Congress unanimity on failing the resolution in the Assembly in March 2006, NC-Congress have been monolithic in supporting safe passage to the Kashmiri militant recruits wishing to return home from Pakistan. But, there is no denying the fact that members of the composite ruling family are pulling in divergent directions.

Azad loyalist, Abdul Gani Vakil, left no stone unturned to berate Mufti and his PDP---even after becoming a Cabinet Minister in 2007---and Mufti’s henchmen burnt midnight oil from Srinagar to New Delhi to smear the politician they called “Delhi’s man in J&K”.  Notwithstanding their exchange of smiles at public functions, JKPCC chief, Saifuddin Soz, and the NC top brass have not been comfortable with each other from day one. This is not for nothing that Omar and Azad have imperceptibly joined hands to target their common enemy---Soz. Supporters of both in the coalition have been laying more stress on Soz’s presence at the dais in Bani than on Sham and his statement.

With the fissures widening, neutral partner Ghulam Hassan Mir has opportunistically thrown his favourite bureaucrat Iqbal Khanday’s hat in the ring to install him as the new Chief Secretary in Jammu & Kashmir. Without taking into confidence anybody among the principal coalition partners, Mir is understood to be pleading Khanday’s case and playing up his ‘Kashmiri Muslim’ card in Delhi inspite of the fact that his client is still a Principal Secretary and junior to four Financial Commissioners, namely Madhav Lal, Parvaiz Dewan (1977), Anil Goswami and Pankaj Jain (1978). Besides, the IAS contender is still an under-trial in a Chandigarh court in the infamous ‘Srinagar Sex Scam’ of 2006 and his conviction can not be ruled out.

Minister of Agriculture, Mir had earlier played key role in Khanday’s reinstatement and winning him a prize position---Principal Secretary Agriculture Production---in Omar Abdullah’s government. He is known as a “hardcore achiever” in everything----grabbing a berth in Cabinet, getting his men, howsoever corrupt and incompetent, on top positions of his portfolio, managing restoration of ‘dignity’ to the bureaucrats outcast by the government in place.

Sham could be played down as an aberration. He remained low-key on his brother Madan Lal Sharma’s left over term of four years in the previous Assembly. He never landed into a controversy on account of his working or statements since he was inducted as a Minister in January 2009, though most of his subordinate officers crossed all limits in corruption and poor performance.

Left out of the Cabinet, Mustafa has been indiscriminately firing salvos not only on Pakistan and the Hurriyat hawk, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, but also on Congress party, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandi and New Delhi. But, they are not the two-odd enfant terribles in the ruling coalition. JKPCC chief himself is credited with the creation of turbulence in 2009 when he triggered off the flare-up of “rape-cum-murder” while announcing on day one that he would take up the matter with the Prime Minister.

Even the Mr Clean from Leh and the most sensible in Congress, Rigzin Jora did arrogantly assail not only NC and its founder, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, but also his Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, while replying a question regarding the ‘poor’ promotion of Urdu language in J&K in Legislative Council in March this year. He has made no secret of his hatred for NC and the Sheikh dynasty. It looks an irony that G M Saroori, known for his praise and respect for Omar, even after falling from the grace, has reduced to be the only well wisher of the Chief Minister in the Congress camp after Taj Mohiuddin.

Coalition’s independent partners, Charanjit Singh (Kathua) and Tsetan Namgyal (Nobra) have not been expressive in airing out their anger and fate of the promises made to them earlier last year but Engineer Rasheed (Langet) has been publicly calling Omar Abdullah’s coalition as “the most incompetent and irresponsive government”. In utter frustration, he has been openly calling J&K a “disputed state” and delivering his own charity trust’s relief cheques at the residences of Hizbul Mujahideen militants dying in encounters with security forces.

CPI (M) State Secretary, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, as well as PDF Chairman, Hakeem Yasin, have also been playing the role of opposition with a minor difference that Tarigami treats Omar’s dispensation as a “lesser evil”.

Omar appeared to be firmly rooted in AICC (read Sonia Gandhi’s home) all through the 2010 turmoil but the fact remains that New Delhi has the history of not changing generals during war. Once the stability is fully back in Kashmir, he could find his coalition partners playing up the “governance deficit” that the Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs has meaningfully not withdrawn.

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