Jammu, Oct 28: J&K Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday accused the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of “reverting his party National Conference (NC) to its original form ‘Muslim Conference’ by perpetrating religious and regional bias against Jammu division and drastically curtailing its representation while expanding his cabinet.”
J&K BJP chief spokesperson Sunil Sethi, joined by other spokespersons Dr Abhijeet Jasrotia, Zorawar Singh and Parimoksh Seth, while addressing a press conference at party headquarters at Trikuta Nagar, Jammu, alleged the expansion reflected that the Chief Minister was in “punishing mode against Jammu region, Hindus of Jammu by denying any representation to Jammu plains.”
The party also took exception to the removal of independent legislator Satish Sharma from the cabinet and alleged that CM Omar and his party gave “precedence to promoting corruption and accommodating faces closer to NC leadership.”
“CM Omar has constituted his kitchen-cabinet where only criterion for ministers is their proximity to him (CM),” Sethi alleged.
He said it was being expected that Jammu division, which had three ministers, including two representing Hindu community in earlier 6-member cabinet, would get an increased representation with the addition of one or two more ministers from the region, following expansion.
“The expansion, however, hurt Jammu region’s cause by further curtailing its already inadequate representation in the cabinet. Earlier 6-member Council had only two Hindu faces. Contrary to expectations of an increase in community representation, one of two Hindu ministers was also dropped, leaving the composition to only one Hindu minister against eight Muslim ministers. Muslim Conference was rechristened as National Conference in the past. But now CM Omar has turned it back to Muslim Conference. This also raises question over the representational character of NC and this government. Will it represent only one region and one community?” Sethi questioned.
Throwing another poser, J&K BJP chief spokesperson asked, “Our question to NC is why Satish Sharma has been removed against whom there are hardly any charges of corruption or any other wrongdoing. Ironically, those, against whom there were allegations of corruption, have been retained.”
Prophesying “imminent fall of NC government”, he recalled BJP earlier also maintained that NC would start disintegrating right from the day it effected cabinet expansion as its leaders’ aspirations for own progress exceeded the urge to serve people of J&K.”
He rejected the speculations of BJP making any attempt to engineer dissention within NC to disintegrate it. “We are not in touch with anyone and we don’t need to do it as the Chief Minister, himself, is accomplishing the job quite efficiently,” Sethi maintained while taking a dig as he referred to disgruntled NC leaders, including Abdul Majid Larmi and Mubarak Gul.
