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| Cong, NC bonhomie not deep enough | | |
Early Times Analysis
JAMMU, July 30, 2009: A strong urge to keep the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of power brought the National Conference and the Congress together after the Assembly elections. Theirs is not a love marriage but a marriage of convenience with both partners trying to keep track of one another’s actions, rather suspiciously.
The Congress leaders maintain a stony silence in public when asked about the distribution of ministries. But in private, they explode and allege that the Chief Minister, Mr Omar Abdullah, has been less than fair to the Congress.
In this regard, the Congress leaders, as also their workers, are miffed at the manner in which ministries have been allocated to heavyweights Sham Sharma, R S Chib and Ghulam Hassan Mir.
Sham Sharma is a cabinet minister looking after the Health department. He is also the cabinet minister in charge of the departments of Floriculture and Horticulture.
R S Chib is the cabinet minister looking after the Medical Education department. He is also the cabinet minister of sports and youth affairs.
Ghulam Hassan Mir is the cabinet minister (from the Congress quota) and is in charge of agriculture.
The separation of health department from medical education is usually considered an aberration and the Congress leaders and workers have been talking about this. Similarly, the separation of agriculture from allied subjects of horticulture & floriculture is also considered an unnatural division.
Interestingly, at the level of ministers of state, these subjects have not been separated. There is a minister of state who looks after both health and medical education. Similarly, there is another minister of state who looks after agriculture, horticulture and floriculture.
This has created a peculiar situation in that there are separate cabinet ministers from the Congress for medical education and health. Similarly, there are two cabinet ministers, again from the Congress, for agriculture and horticulture & floriculture. However, the ministers of state for allied subjects, drawn from the NC, who look after both health and medical education as also agriculture, floriculture and horticulture.
At the level of the commissioner cum secretary as well, the departments of health and medical education are together and one person looks after these allied fields. Similarly, for agriculture, horticulture and floriculture too, there is only one commissioner cum secretary.
In contrast, the NC legislator from Kargil, Mr Qamar Ali Akhoon, has been given two important ministries, of transport as also consumer affairs & public distribution. The whisper campaign by the Congress workers and leaders is that the CM has clubbed two important portfolios to reward the NC leader and split allied ministries to shortchange the Congress bigwigs.
This lack of trust between the NC and the Congress does not bode well for the state as it is likely that they will constantly undercut one another, instead of working together, sincerely, for the larger good of the masses.
The Congress workers, in private, say that by splitting the allied subjects in case of Congress ministers, the CM has not done the right thing. They also say that the only reason why the Congress leaders are keeping mum is because Mrs Sonia Gandhi has advised them to work to strengthen the Omar government.
Given this, it is clear that at least the above named cabinet ministers from the Congress are unhappy with the way the ministries have been allocated to them. Of course, the allocation of ministries is the CM’s prerogative and he is well within his rights to split or combine subjects the way he deems fit.
The powers-that-be have every right to dismiss these whispers in the corridors of the secretariat with contempt as figments of somebody’s imagination. Else, they can dissect and analyse for themselves to check whether there is any element of truth in what is being said.
The media is only a messenger but shooting the messenger or at least attempting to do so is something that politicians often indulge into. In this case too, the results may not be any different.
Box in item above
“The whisper campaign by the Congress workers and leaders is that the CM has clubbed two important portfolios to reward the NC leader and split allied ministries to shortchange the Congress bigwigs”
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