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| Center-State WG enters stalemate | | No consensus among parties, report not expected soon | |
ET REPORTER
Jammu, July 8: With major ruling and opposition political parties sticking to a rigid stand, the Prime Minister’s Working Group on Central-State relations has entered into a near-total stalemate with no immediate possibility of consensual report on the subject.
Highly placed sources said that the major parties including Congress, Peoples Democratic Party and the National Conference are not ready to budge even by an inch on their stated positions on the Center-State relations and thus it was becoming difficult for the chairman of the group Justice Saghir Ahmed to arrive at a conclusion and submit the report to the Prime Minister to make a possibility of convening fourth roundtable conference.
“The is nor purpose or logic of convening of fourth roundtable conference till Prime Minister get report of the Working Group on Center-State relations, a top official told the EARLY TIMES. The four of the five Working Groups constituted by the Prime Minister had submitted their reports during third roundtable conference on April 24 in New Delhi.
One of the significant parties to the Center-State relations, the National Conference had earlier boycotted the meetings but later joined to make its point very clear on the subject making a reference to the Autonomy resolution of the state legislature. Leave NC aside, even the Congress and PDP, partners in Jammu and Kashmir's ruling alliance, have serious differences on the issue of self-rule and sticking to the 1975 Indira-Sheikh agreement on power sharing, said an expert. The Congress says that the 1975 pact between then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and then Chief Minister Sheikh Abdullah was final and political parties should push for strengthening the same. However, being critical of this stand, the PDP says that this agreement was only for power sharing and did no good to the people.
Instead, the PDP has been pushing for the self-rule formula but has failed to explain in the Working Group’s meetings as to how it was different from the autonomy advocated by the National Conference, said a source who is member of the Working Group. The National Conference, on the other hand, is alleging that the discussions on autonomy had remained a non-starter despite several assurances by the former NDA Government and the current UPA regime.
Getting different from the three parties, the CPIM has called for an 'internal self-determination', whereby people of Jammu Kashmir could look after every sphere of the State's development while defence, foreign affairs and other important institutions remained with the Centre. This is something like reinforcing the Article 370 in its true spirit, which is vehemently opposed by the BJP. The BJP says that instead of discussing the Center-State relations the focus should be more on the internal democracy in Jammu and Kashmir.
With these conflicting views, sources said, the Chairman of the Working Group, Justice Saghir Ahmed is finding it difficult to compile the final report for submission before the Prime Minister. This Working Group is one of five committees constituted after the second roundtable conference chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Srinagar in May last year. This was the only Working Group that had remained headless for nearly six months after the announcement of its formation. The State Government had earlier approached former Chief Justice A M Ahmadi, who sought commission-status for the Working Group. Finally, former Justice Sageer Ahmed, who resigned as chairman of the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission in 2004, was appointed to head the group. Besides discussing the strengthening of ties between the State and the Centre, the group is also deliberating on matters related to the special status of Jammu and Kashmir within the Indian Union, methods of strengthening democracy, secularism and rule of law in the State.
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