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| Inter-district recruitment ban Bill shelved as NC gives in to Congress | | |
ZAFAR CHOUDHARY/
AHMED ALI FAYYAZ
Jammu/Srinagar, Sept 1: Not in any mood to damage its Jammu specific political constituency, the coalition partner Congress appears to have scored a significant brownie point over the National Conference as it managed to get the Bill on banning inter-district recruitments shelved for now.
However, the Congress’ significant political triumph was not without cracks within the party as two Ministers –Taj Mohiuddin and Sham Lal Sharma –locked horns in the Legislative Assembly as the former pleaded Kashmir cause and the latter batted for Jammu. Interestingly, the key player in the whole issue, the National Conference, particularly its legislators from North Kashmir, were left fuming as the government skipped discussion on the report of Joint Select Committee which was tabled in the House by Law Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar only the previous day.
As already elaborately debated in Early Times, the government had brought Bill in the Legislative Assembly earlier this year seeking to ban the inter-district recruitments for district cadre posts. The main motive behind the Bill was wide resentment across Kashmir Valley over the youth from Jammu region bagging reserved seats there as in Kashmir there are no Scheduled Castes and the educational profile of Scheduled Tribes is not well enough to compete. After strong opposition from Jammu based political leader inside and outside the House, the Bill was referred to the Joint Select Committee of both Houses which okayed it with minor amendments and the report was tabled in the Assembly on Monday.
On last day of the current session, when report of JSC did not come up for discussion, the House witnessed uproarious scenes after five members hailing from the frontier district of Kupwara alleged that the government had failed to move a Bill to amend the Inter District Recruitment Rules.
Immediately after the question hour got over, all the members from Kupwara--Kafil Ur Rehman, Mir Saifullah and Choudhary Mohammad Ramzan (all from ruling National Conference), Abdul Haq Khan of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Sheikh Abdul Rashid, Independent supporting NC, said that despite assurance by the Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister Ali Mohammad Sagar to the House, the Bill was not introduced.
Today being the last day of this session, they alleged that it showed that the government was not serious in the matter. However, members from the BJP and the National Panthers Party (NPP) were on the defence and said they will not allow any such Bill as the same will take away the rights of Schedule Casts (SC) and Schedule Tribes (ST).
Members from Kupwara and BJP-NPP were on their feets saying something which was not audible in the press gallery. The members from both the sides kept standing despite warnings by the speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone to them.
Sheikh Rashid was more agitated and said that hundreds of unemployed youths in the Kupwara districts are on strike. ''Where is the bill when the government had promised to introduce it and pass it during this session?'' he asked. Mir Saifullah said that during the last week's protest by all Kupwara MLAs inside the House, the minister had promised that the bill would be introduced before the end of the session.
Earlier, speaking on the issue, the senior Congress leader and Minister for PHE Taj Mohiuddin stood in defence of the proposed legislation when he attracted wrath of his party colleague and Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma. Taj argued that Bill to ban inter-district recruitments is imminent as youths from Jammu are taking away district cadre jobs in various Valley districts. He said, “SCs and STc in Jammu region were economically and socially well off and they should leave it for Kashmir”. Armed with statistics, another Congress leader and Health Minister Shal Lal Sharma snubbed Taj saying that 49,000 families in Jammu were living below poverty line and 12,000 of them were in his Akhnoor constituency alone.
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