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| With skeletons tumbling out of cupboards, uncertainty over Qazi prolonging | | | Early Times Special Correspondent
Jammu | Sep 22
With more and more skeletons tumbling out of the cupboards of Forest, Housing and Urban Development Departments, the hanging in balance of the fate of Qazi Mohd. Afzal, whose resignation from Azad cabinet has been kept in cold storage, is getting prolonged. With a section of media, friendly to PDP implicitly putting question mark on Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's personal integrity and blasting his claims of all out war on corruption, conveying an impression of Chief Minister's culpability in various scams in the Forest, Housing and Urban Development Departments and projecting Qazi Afzal as a victim of the conspiracy hatched by some vested interest in the corporate sector and some elements in the administration and the government, with the blessings of Ghulam Nabi Azad, the options regarding the future of former Forest Minister Qazi Mohd Afzal are narrowing down.
The element of the involvement of Ghulam Nabi Azad's brothers in using their influence and the name of the Chief Minister in getting favours, in terms of allotment of hall in Bahu Plaza JDA Complex and their exploits in the SFC and the forest department, is hitting hard the personal credibility of Azad. While Qazi Afzal's hand is sought to be washed off in the irregularities committed by the JDA in allotment of a shopping hall in the Bahu Plaza commercial complex as well as the encroachment of big chunk of forest land by a colonizer from outside the state, in developing housing colony at Chatta--Sunjwa, the blame for all these irregular deals and wrong doing is implicitly being put in the court of the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister's silence over the whole murky affairs is further deepening the mystery and creating an impression of his being defenseless. Under the circumstances, if the Chief Minister retracts his step in divesting Qazi of forest portfolio, as was assured by him in his letter to the Qazi, in response to latter's resignation letter, it will be construed that Qazi was made to pay the price of raising objections over irregularities being committed in departments under him and that the Chief Minsiter was on the back of wrong doers. However, even if Qazi's resignation from the cabinet is accepted, the question mark on the personal cleanliness of Ghulam Nabi Azad and his claims of all out war on corruption and irregularities in the administration as well as in the public life will continue, until Azad comes out with other side of the story if any at all.
This is apart the mutual distrust and spat between the two coalition partners, the Congress and the PDP and resolution of the respective prerogatives of the Chief Minister in a coalition government and the leader of the main coalition partner in the government. Thus the knot over the issue instead of getting unknot has further tightened.
Ghulam Nabi Azad's disadvantage viz a viz his rival, but partner in the ruling coalition, Mufti Mohd. Sayeed has been that while the latter has some highly confident and trusted friends in the media, Azad has failed to create any such cell. Through selective leaks to the friendly media Mufti, his daughter and other PDP leaders, without bringing their direct involvement, render great help to Muftis, while even the Congress party and its media cell has not been so active to influence another section of media in favour of Azad. The prolonged silence of Azad and the Congress party over the matter is harming their prospects.
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