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| Congress may not allow Omar to continue as CM after 2011 | | STARK REALITY | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Dec 15: Congressmen, particularly those belonging to Jammu province, are not happy with the power-sharing formula under which NC leader Omar Abdullah was handed over the office of Chief Minister for full term of six years. They are for that power-sharing formula under which the PDP and the Congress shared power. Under that arrangement, which had been worked out in 2002 in the wake of the fractured mandate, the PDP was to hold the office of Chief minister for first three years and the Congress during the remaining period. In other words, Congressmen in Jammu province want the Congress high command to review its stand on the 2008 “lop-sided” power-sharing formula so that a Congressman becomes Chief Minister on January 4, 2011, when Omar Abdullah would complete three years in office.
If sources within the JKPCC are to be believed, then it can be said that several Jammu-based Congress leaders would mount pressure on the high command in the coming days. Senior Congress leaders told this scribe on the condition of anonymity that they are convinced that the Congress party would be “completely wiped out from Jammu province in case Omar Abdullah continued to occupy the highest executive post in the state after 2011.” They have revealed that what Congress veteran and former Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma said at Dayalachak and Samba only recently and what Health Minister Sham Lal Sharma said at Bani in Kathua district only on December 5 was nothing but a desperate attempt to draw the attention of the AICC to the growing discontent among the Congressmen in the state in general and Jammu province in particular.
While Mangat Ram Sharma had, it may recalled, suggested that the office of Chief Minister must rotate between the two coalition partners in the best interests of both the parties, Sham Lal Sharma had gone several steps further and suggested that trifurcation of the state into Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh states was the only alternative left to meet the needs and aspirations of the people in different regions.
The arguments advanced by the votaries of rotational Chief Minister are many. One of the arguments is that the Chief Minister is interested more in nurturing his own constituency in Kashmir than in adopting policies which are state-centric and which also take care of the overall interests of the Congress party in the state. Yet another argument of theirs’ is that the Chief Minister is pursuing an agenda that “hurts the psyche” of the people of Jammu province and Ladakh region and makes them believe that the “Congress is also a party to what the Chief Minister has been systematically doing to cater to his Kashmir constituency.” They are also feeling upset because they feel that the people of Jammu province are not being given “due share in the governance of the state.”
Significantly, trustworthy sources within the JKPCC also reveal that party’s grassroots level workers, and even senior party leaders are “very angry” with the Congress ministers hailing from Jammu. According to them, barring one minister, all others endorse the Chief Minister’s decisions just to remain in his good books. In this regard, the sources referred to the decision of the government to set up a separate state election commission, and added that almost everyone in the Congress party in Jammu province is against the surrender/return/rehabilitation policy, which was recently approved by the State Cabinet.
The sources, in short, revealed that a whisper campaign is going on among the Jammu-based Congressmen, who really matter and that they would intensify their activities designed to compel the AICC to go by their sentiment. One thing appears certain: The gulf between the two coalition partners is widening at an alarming speed.
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