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| NC’s populist measures to win Valley | | Bridging the gulf | | Rustam
JAMMU, Aug 8: What Chief Minister Omar Abdullah didn’t do in more than five years he has been desperately trying to do it after May 16, when the election authorities declared the NC defeated in all the three Kashmir Lok Sabha seats. The defeat was comprehensive and message from Kashmir was loud and clear: NC no more wanted. The defeat of the NC candidates at the hands of the newly-founded PDP candidates, including NC president, four-time state Chief Minister and former Cabinet Minister Farooq Abdullah, obviously rattled the NC leadership in general and Omar Abdullah in particular because it was he who led the party from the front. He continues to hold the position of working president of the NC because the party is no more than a private enterprise of the Abdullah family. Had the NC been not their private enterprise, things in the party today would have been somewhat different and Omar Abdullah would have been at the receiving end. The fact that the poll managers and ticket distributors in the party have reportedly thought of fielding him not from Ganderbal Assembly constituency he at present represents but from two “safe” constituencies, including Sonawar and Hazratbal, clearly suggests that it is he continues to play all shots in the organization.
However, it is fact that Omar Abdullah has realized that things are not inspiring for his party and that he has to go some extra miles and take some steps to regain the lost political space, if not completely, at least some of it so that the NC remains relevant in the Kashmir’s political arena. After all, Kashmir remained the NC’s stronghold for decades together. He has during the past few days taken some steps aimed at improving the poll prospects of the NC. He enhanced the retirement age of Government employees from 58 to 60 years, discontinued the new recruitment policy under which the Government employees would get one-third of the actual salary for the first five years of their service, raised the age-limit for entry into Government service from 37 to 48 years and withdrew the ban on Short Messaging Service (SMS) in vogue in Kashmir since 2010, when the cult of stone throwers assumed alarming proportions in parts of the Kashmir valley, which culminated in several deaths. All these measures, he believed, would bolster the chances of the NC in the coming Assembly elections. Not just this, he also initiated several other developmental activities, all calculated to create an impression among the Valley people that he was committed to their overall development and prosperity and it is also being alleged by the PDP that the NC is appointing persons through backdoor. Besides, he has also been ruking up controversial issues to achieve the same objective. So much so, his administration overtly and covertly hobnobbed with the opponents of Kousarnag Yatra in Kashmir, which led to the banning of yatra, an annual affair since centuries.
It appears all his efforts have gone down the drain. This is evident from the fact that none of his actions and politically-motivated administrative steps has evoked any positive response from the people in the Valley. It can also be seen from the fact that the popularity graph of the PDP has been rising with each passing day. Omar Abdullah knows that he and his administrative steps have not really clicked in the manner they should have and that is the reason he wants to do much more during the next 30-40 days, but his problem is that he is not getting the required funds from the centre. He should remember that knee-jerk actions seldom pay. Model Code of Conduct would come into force anytime after September 15. |
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