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| PRD Bill thrown under carpet because of pressure from Delhi | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Apr 6: The Congress high command is said to have taken a serious view of the plan of the National Conference to allow the Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill to be introduced in the Legislative Council. On the basis of the reports that the National Conference leadership was not prepared to oppose the PDP plan on the issue as that could have proved counterproductive for the party in the Kashmir valley Delhi cracked the whip. Reports said that it was after the National Conference leadership and the Congress legislators received reports that Delhi was angry over the matter and wanted the plan to be shelved that the NC leadership agreed to get the issue scuttled before it was taken for consideration and debate.
Highly placed informed sources said that the ruling coalition had discussed the matter with the chairman and the Deputy chairman of the Legislative Council and way was found to prevent any discussion on the Bill. The presiding officer's ruling placed the controversial issue under the carpet. One report said that even the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, had been in favour of a debate on the Bill because the Kashmir centric political party, like the PDP, could not afford to oppose tabling of the Bill. It was in this connection that the Revenue Minister, Raman Bhalla, had been told by the Chief Minister to support the Bill when it was sought to be introduced in the Legislative Council by the PDP member, Murtaza Khan.
Bhalla did what he had been told by the Chief Minister which led to a breezy peoples' resentment against the Congress in the Jammu region. Critics of the Bill believed that the Congress too supported the Bill which was gender biased and would deprive women of their basic rights, including the right to own or purchase immovable property or inherit immovable assets from her parents, in case she married a man who is not a state subject.
But after a couple of days' discussion within the party the state unit of the Congress toughened its stand and made it clear to the National Conference that it was not going to support the Bill, whether introduced in the upper House or in the Assembly. Rightly the Congress had received reports that if it supported the Bill it would face an embarrassing and awkward situation of the type it had faced during the two-month long agitation against the revocation of diversion of land order to Amarnath Shrine Board.
Notwithstanding the fact that the constitutional amendment Bill had to be first moved in the Assembly and after it was adopted with a mandatory support of two-third majority it could go to the Upper House for approval the PDP had adopted a short-cut route by tabling the Bill in the Legislative Council. It was this very constitutional lacuna that did not allow the controversial Bill to move to the state of discussion and voting. The Congress legislators had received strict instructions to vote against the Bill, whether in the Upper House or in the Assembly, if it was tabled for discussion and voting. The Congress had one satisfaction that the Bill could not be adopted in the absence of Congress support. For the adoption of the Bill there was need for a support from 58 members of the Assembly and if the NC and the PDP had joined hands it could not have mustered the support of the two-third majority. The way the Bill has been buried for the time being has saved the ruling coalition from facing a major conflict and it saved the Congress from inviting peoples' wrath.
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