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| Cabinet in perpetual deadlock | | Not meeting since two months; new Chief Secretary's appointment acid test | | Early Times Reporter
Jamm | Oct 15
With no possibility in sight for a patch-up between the coalition partners, more than two months have passed that the Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has not been able to convene a meeting of his cabinet to clear long pending important decisions.
Just ten days have left for the formal closure of civil secretariat in Srinagar for its biennial move to the winter capital but there are no chances of holding the cabinet meeting in these ten days. "Through General Administration Department, the Chief Minister has not been conveying to his cabinet colleagues for a formal meeting apprehending that the Ministers from the Peoples Democratic Party might not attend the meeting thus making it an embarrassing situation", said a source in the government.
When a PDP minister contacted, he told EARLY TIMES, "Chief Minister has created a crisis and unless the situation is not resolved there is no question of our attending the cabinet meeting". He was referring to the controversy revolving around Housing and Urban Development Minister Qazi Mohammad Afzal who has since resigned but the Chief Minister is yet to give a word on acceptance or rejection of his resignation.
As the PDP-Congress crisis was already full blown that a new controversy has erupted adding to inability of the Chief Minister to convene the cabinet meeting. Naming of Transport Minister Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen in the infamous Srinagar sex scandal has given new turn to the unease among the coalition partners. "He should have resigned on moral grounds or the Chief Minister should have sacked him till he is proved innocent", said a PDP Minister. He added, "though we have not drawn any conclusion on Hekeem's involvement in the sex scandal despite the fact that he level charges of conspiracy against our party but he should not be a party to the cabinet proceedings till charges are dropped against him or he is proved innocent in the trial".
With this tug of war between the coalition partners, all significant decisions are badly held up. Perhaps one of the most important decisions where the Chief Minister might difficulty is the clearance for the name of new Chief Secretary. The incumbent Chief Secretary Chhewang Punsog, an IAS officer of 1972 batch is retiring on last working day of this month. Though the Financial Commissioner Home Balwant Rai Kundal is next in line as the senior most officer to succeed Phunsog, but his name has to be cleared by the cabinet.
The government has been able to run the routine affairs of the state without discussing important issues in the cabinet for than two months, but for this particular decision the Chief Minister might find himself in a piquant situation. If the cabinet does not meet in next 10 to 15 days, there may not be any decision on the next Chief Secretary. On the contrary if the Chief Minister goes ahead with his Congress Ministers to clear the decision, the Peoples Democratic Party might walk out of the government.
It was in the second week of August that the cabinet met last. Ever since, on one account or the other, the Chief Minister has not been able to convene a meeting of the cabinet. Earlier, the controversy had been raised by the Finance Minister Tariq Hamid Qarra on bias in Vigilance investigations and later the Qazi Afzal incident happened on September 2, further worsening the relations between the coalition partners. |
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