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| Pall of gloom descends on acting Ministers, aspirants all smiles | | Omar's resignation salvo! | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Jan 13: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's political salvo of asking his trusted and tested colleagues to resign from their respective positions has brought smiles to aspirants and spelled pale of doom over acting ministers, one of the two political advisors and heads of various statutory bodies.
Omar has asked the aspirants not to knock at his door, instead have faith in God and leave the induction as well as portfolio allocation to him. However, Having got addicted to stagnancy and routine leak of expansion-reshuffle talk in the media, this political salvo has re-ignited the issue of NC trying to salvage some pride by bringing in new faces and assigning the job of rejuvenating the party cadre to elders, presently looking after various important portfolios in the state.
This may not act as a genie for Omar but is likely to be remembered as the only major political initiative which the young CM took during his tenure. Though none of the NC ministers have received official call for submitting resignations to Chief Minis-ter Omar Abdullah yet it is largely believed that nothing much would change and by Monday evening, all the NC ministers would have got 'former as well as ex' tagged behind their names.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah along with Patron of national Conference Dr. Farooq Abdullah would meet NC leaders and resigning ministers, political advisors and heads of various corporations during the dinner. Sources said that they would be briefed about their new roles and responsibilities both within the party and in the new council of ministers which would be sworn in a day later. Bring well aware of
political repercussions which removal of some elder and older ministers from the state cabinet would have; the father-son duo are likely to do all on earth to dispel apprehensions of these old hawks,
who have been serving the party from the last three decades.
Being aware that anti-defection law would not allow any of the NC old guards to even think of rebellion, sources said that those who are likely to be shown the door would be promised all under the open sky.
They further said that three senior ministers, of which two have always remained in the media limelight for all the wrong reasons are likely to be offered party positions and asked not to brood over bring
removed unceremoniously from the council of ministers.
Sources further said that MLA Handwara Choudhary Ramzan, MLA Kupwara Mir Saifullah, MLA Kishtwar Sajjad Kitchloo, MLA Karnah Kafeel-ur-Rehman, MLC Ajay Sadhotra and MLC Vijay Bakaya are some the leaders whose names have been doing rounds in almost all the National Conference (NC) circles. They added that Farooq and Omar would brief this fresh lot of ministers about their roles and responsibilities in the party and the council of ministers.
They said that Minister of State for PWD Javed Dar, Minister for Higher Education Abdul Gani Malik alongwith three other ministers are on weak wicket and possibly the ones, who would be given some position in the party. Nasir Aslam Wani, who is Minister of State (MOS) Home, is likely to be elevated to a cabinet portfolio while nothing much is known about high profile Political Advisor Devinder Rana. He is
unlikely to continue on the same position, said the sources.
Sources said that one of the NC ministers, who came to know from the newspaper about Chief Minister seeking resignation, in shock rang up several colleagues to confirm whether the news was based on facts or not. Another minister did not believe the news at all and when asked by Early Times about the resignation, he said "I do not think, anything like this is going to happen. You (Media) have right to
speculate and so you can." Same was the case with other ministers.
On the contrary, a major chunk of NC ministers is looking at this reshuffle as too late, gap filling, constituency satisfying and dissidence controlling exercise. They do not hesitate in saying that it would be extremely difficult to contribute much since they have just 24 months, of which three to five months would be lost to weather conditions, two months would be consumed by parliamentary elections while militancy, border tension and other security issues might also consume around two months. Left with 13 months, these leaders feel that they would not be able to change much but even then would make
all possible efforts to address the issue which commoners across the state face as a matter of routine.
Amid this tiring speculation, all would be known at 4 PM on December 15 when the Governor would administer oath of office and secrecy to freshers from both NC and Congress. Prior to this, only a leak would bring out some freshness to this reshuffle and resignation story. Much more would be known either on the same evening or a day later, when the Chief Minister unveils the portfolio kitty of his.
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