Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 26: The issue of daily wagers has emerged as a contentious political flashpoint, exposing deep-seated rivalries and unfulfilled promises between the ruling National Conference (NC) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
As of March 2025, the plight of an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 daily-rated, ad-hoc, and casual workers employed across various government departments has fueled protests, assembly walkouts, and a war of words, with both parties accusing each other of betraying these vulnerable employees.
Today, former PHE Minister Sham Lal Sharma shifted all blame on the National Conference for not regularizing daily wagers.
The demand for regularization—converting these precarious jobs into permanent positions with better wages and security—has become a litmus test for political accountability in the Union Territory, revealing a governance stalemate amid competing narratives.
The NC, which leads the government in alliance with the Congress following the 2024 Assembly elections, has pointed fingers at the BJP for the current crisis. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his deputy, Surinder Kumar Choudhary, have repeatedly claimed that the BJP, during its decade-long influence in Jammu and Kashmir—either through its coalition with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from 2015 to 2018 or its indirect control via the Lieutenant Governor’s administration post-2019—did little to address the regularization of daily wagers.
The NC argues that the BJP’s inaction, including the scrapping of SRO-520 in 2022 under the J&K Reorganisation Act, closed off existing pathways to regularization, leaving workers in limbo. Speaking in the Legislative Assembly in March 2025, Abdullah highlighted that only 570 out of approximately 61,000 daily wagers were regularized under the BJP-PDP coalition, accusing the opposition of “decades of betrayal” and prioritizing political optics over the welfare of poor employees.
Conversely, the BJP has turned the tables, accusing the NC of failing to honor its own electoral promises. During the 2024 campaign, the NC manifesto explicitly pledged to regularize daily wagers, a commitment echoed by other parties, including the BJP, PDP, and Congress. Yet, six months into the NC-led government, tangible progress remains elusive, prompting the BJP to label the ruling party’s assurances as hollow. Opposition leader Sunil Sharma and other BJP legislators have staged walkouts in the Assembly, decrying the government’s “arrogance” and its reliance on a committee—announced by Abdullah on March 11, 2025, and headed by Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo—as a delaying tactic.
The committee, tasked with assessing the number of d The demand for regularization has become a litmus test for political accountability in the Union Territory.
The ruling National Conference is blaming the BJP for the current crisis.
The NC argues that the BJP’s inaction, including the scrapping of SRO-520 in 2022 closed off existing pathways to regularization.
Conversely, the BJP has turned the tables, accusing the NC of failing to honor its own electoral promises.
This political tug-of-war has unfolded against a backdrop of escalating worker unrest. Daily wagers, particularly from the Jal Shakti (Public Health Engineering) Department, have staged demonstrations since October 2024, with a significant strike in March 2025 disrupting water supply across the region. Earning as little as Rs 9,000 per month—up from a meager Rs 500-700 before BJP interventions—these workers argue that successive governments have dangled the promise of regularization as an electoral “lollipop” without delivering justice. The NC’s defense, articulated by Abdullah, hinges on the complexity of the issue, framing it as a “humanitarian and social” concern rather than a mere financial one. He has appealed to workers to end their strike, promising resolution via the committee’s roadmap in the next budget session, while deflecting blame for police action onto the centrally controlled Raj Bhawan.
The blame game has deeper roots in Jammu and Kashmir’s fractured political history. The NC accuses the BJP of exacerbating the crisis by dismantling earlier regularization efforts, such as those initiated during the NC’s 2009-2014 tenure, which were derailed by the 2014 floods and subsequent political upheaval. The BJP, in turn, claims it raised wages and made regularization a priority in its manifesto, only to be thwarted by its opposition status despite securing 1.5 lakh more votes than the NC in 2024. Both parties have leveraged the Assembly as a battleground, with NC legislators chanting “Shame, Shame” at the BJP and the latter retorting with slogans like “Dailywageron Ko Pakka Karo” (Regularize Daily Wagers).
Caught in this political crossfire are the daily wagers themselves, whose families face mounting economic hardship in an inflation-hit region. The issue transcends party lines, reflecting systemic governance challenges in a Union Territory where the elected government’s powers remain curtailed under the Lieutenant Governor’s oversight. As the NC’s committee deliberates and the BJP intensifies its critique, the regularization demand has become a symbol of broader discontent—testing the credibility of both parties and the resilience of Jammu and Kashmir’s fledgling democratic process. For now, the workers’ fate hangs in the balance, a pawn in a high-stakes political chess match. |
