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| Azad's tough, but cool handling of crisis has paid dividends | | | Early Times Special Correspondent
Jammu | Oct 8
The tough stand taken by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad against the coalition partner of Congress in the state government, who from day one after the transfer of Chief Ministership from PDP's Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to the Congress leader Mr. Azad, has been creating problems by putting spanners in the smooth functioning of the government, has paid dividends. The PDP President, Mehbooba Mufti, who had earlier threatened of pulling out of the coalition government if forest portfolio is not restored to Qazi Mohammad Afzal, has relented after Azad caught the bull by the horn by allotting even the other portfolios of Housing and Urban Development, to a junior Congress minister Ajiz Ahmed Khan. In this regard Mehbooba Mufti's statement after her return to the state from USA that Congress and PDP coalition in J&K was not a power sharing arrangement but had much higher objective of creating conditions conducive for settlement of internal and external dimension of Kashmir issue, implicitly hinting at PDP to continue as ally of the Congress even in and after the next elections in the state.
This climb down of PDP from its hard stance till only a few days ago, is also believed to have been influenced by the Central leadership of Congress, with whom Mehbooba had prolonged meetings on her return from USA and before coming back to state, that they solidly support Azad as Chief Minister of the state and their polite refusal to intervene in the matter of allocation of portfolios by the Chief Minister, to his Council of Ministers or to take back portfolios from his ministers. The unequivocal statement by the new Army Chief, General Deepak kapoor, on his maiden visit to J&K after assuming the charge, ruling out troops reduction in the state at this stage, has also a solitary affect on the PDP leaders to soften their stand. However, to give face saving device to Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter, The Central Congress leadership, including Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are reported to have underscored the prominent role Mufti Sayeed has to play to defuse the deadlock in resolving the internal and external dimension of Kashmir problem. This is what exactly Mehbooba Mufti means in stating that the Congress and PDP alliance is not for power sharing, but for higher objective of tackling Kashmir imbroglio.
The involvement of a senior PDP Minister, who was in the past handling forest departments, in the scam of artificially creating shortage of timber in Kashmir valley to favour an outside firm, who supplied huge quantities of timber to J&K at much higher rates and with whom the PDP leader is found by the B R Kundal enquiry panel to be in league, as well as the involvement of the same leader in fishy conduct of since removed SFC MD, has further put the PDP in defensive. The poor Qazi has however been made the scapegoat and made to pay for the sin of his colleague, known to be Man Friday of Muftis. This also explains as to why the PDP did not chose to precipitate the matter over stripping Qazi of forest portfolio, as it had done a year ago when Azad again allotted portfolios of Finance, Planning and Law to then Deputy Chief Minister Muzzafar Hussain Beig, after reshuffle of his Council of Ministers and portfolios to them, against the expressed wishes of Mufti Sayeed. It is believed that Mufti's had got knowledge of the involvement of their close confident in the controversial deals in the Forest Department, which had triggered fresh controversy between the two coalition partners. The Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's reticent and not getting provoked over the statements of Mehbooba Mufti as well as repeated letters shot at by Qazi Afzal, charging the Chief Minister of violating the commission dharma, while at the same time taking effective measures to reach at the bottom of the case was also reasoned by having come to know about the big hand of the senior PDP leader and Minister in his Cabinet in the forest department scams. Instead of speaking loudly giving explanations of his actions, Azad acted calculatedly, with composed and calm mind, to let the facts speak for themselves. Although the Kundal panel report into the bungling and irregularities in the forest department and SFC are yet to be presented to the Chief Minster, its contents are leaked to the media to silence the loud voices raised by the PDP leaders as well as to bring home the sacrificial goat, Mohd Afzal Qazi as to who has betrayed and ditched him. There is irony in the matter that Afzal Qazi, in his letters to the Chief Minister pressing for acceptance of his resignation, was defending more his party colleague than himself and now the same colleague is proving to be cause of his undoing. |
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