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| No motives behind Omar's absence | | | Members raised one pertinent question in the Assembly on Monday. "Where is the Chief Minister,Omar Abdullah ?" This question was raised when some of them,including Harsh Dev Singh of the Panthers Party,informed the House that the Chief Minister had not been coming to the Assembly for the last 12 days.He said that Omar Abdullah had been in his seat in the House for a brief period on August 12 and since then he has not been seen.In fact the members did not seem to be bothered about the welfare of the Chief Minister.They had felt peeved over the absence of Omar Abdullah when important issues were being discussed in the House..They wanted to have a dig at the ruling alliance by pointing out that the question on power was being replied by the Minister for Tourism.However,the Finance Minister,Abdul Rahim Rather,calmed down the members by telling them the Chief Minister had the perogative to assign the duty of replying to questions to any minister.If that
can be the case,it is not against the rules of House,let then Revenue Minister reply questions on agriculture,Minister for Agriculture replying qustions on health and medical education,Minister for Forests replying questions on power,so on and so forth.If this system is evolved it could enable the ministerial colleagues of Omar Abdullah to be Jack of all trades and master of none.Once this happens there will be no difficulty for the ministers to adjust with new portfolios once they were reshuffled.Another issue that needs to be discussed is whether it is mandatory for the Chief Minister to be present in the House.He is leader of the House and as such he is supposed to intervene once he finds his ministerial colleagues either getting fumbled or being cornered by the opposition members either during the question hour or during debates and discussion on important political and economic issues.One may have witnessed how a Chief Minister dashes to the
House from his chambers once there is pandemonium in the Assembly or once the matter under discussion calls for Government's assurance which usually the Chief Minister can give.The House can complete its day to business even if senior opposition leaders remain absent.Well the House was not swept by any crisis if the PDP patron,Mufti Mohd.Sayeed attended the Assembly for only three days till August 24.He has remained absent for months together since he lost power in 2005 as he had nothing specific to contribute to the discussion in the House.He knows it well that he has a team of PDP MLAs who have the calibre to face any problem and for r aising valid issues pertaining to the well being of the people of the state.He has complete faith in his men,including the lone woman member,Mehbooba Mufti,, in the House who have the political and physical stamina for embarrassing the ruling coalition.Similarly Omar Abdullah knows it well that his party
MLAs re fully trained to measure swords with the opposition members.These opposition members did not know that Omar Abdullah had visited farflung areas including Kargil and Gurez where he had detailed discussion with people and their representatives on development activities.From Gurez he had gone to Delhi to meet senior Government functionaries.He has been on the move carrying out more productive activity than he could have done by dozing in his chair in the Assembly.Well it is in the interest of the ruling coalition that Omar Abdullah spends more time outside the House than in the Assembly because any provocative remark from the opposition members,especially from the PDP benches,could kick up another row in which Chief Minister announces to resign.If he implements his threat as he did three weeks ago it would again result in a political storm.And Omar\Abdullah is capable of kicking up such a situation because young blood flows in his
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