J & K Diary

?Secular? marriage

JAMMU: Although a personal affair, the marriage of Sachin Pilot with Sara has attracted lot of public attention in the State because of the family background of the newly-wed couple. While Sachin is the son of the late Congress leader Rajesh Pilot, Sara is the daughter of the former Chief Minister of J&K and National Conference leader, Dr Farooq Abdullah.

The Congressmen in the State looked quite happy over this marriage and some of them were seen congratulating one another and distributing ladoos. But many in the National Conference camp were seen dejected and upset as many of their adversaries in the public life took this opportunity to exploit this marriage by giving it communal colour.

For Dr Farooq Abdullah and his family members the issue of out-of-caste marriage should not be a matter of any controversy because right from Sheikh Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah, to Omar Abdullah, they all had out-of-caste marriages. But the staying-away of the Abdullahs from the marriage has obviously given an opportunity to their adversaries to exploit the

development to suit their ends.

While dejection amongst many of the National Conference activists and supporters is an obvious phenomenon, there are some sympathisers of the Abdullah camp too who claim that this family is really of seculars and has no bar of caste and religious bindings.

Govt flying high The change in the Government

of Jammu and Kashmir has made little difference especially in the misuse of Government resources. During the National Conference Government’sregime, there was lot of criticism against the Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah that he wasted public funds not only for him but also for his colleagues luxuries. In this regard, the purchase of a small plane-King of Kings-and two helicopters was the specific charge.

This small and most modern plane as also two helicopters cost the exchequer over Rs 30 crore. Dr Abdullah allegedly used the King of Kings quite liberally even for joining the private functions at far-off places in the country. Some members of the opposition used to allege that he used this plane as if it was a bicycle.

But after the change of the Government, the use of this plane and the helicopters appeared to be more frequent than that during the previous regime. According to reliable sources, during the period of about 14 months of this Government, the King of Kings was used to have about 350 sorties and the helicopters had about 2000 sorties. In addition to the cost of maintenance and the salaries of the staff, about Rs 50 lakh have cost the exchequer for fuelling the sorties. On an average, the plane and the helicopters cost the exchequer over Rs 30 lakh per month.

It is alleged that the plane and the helicopters are being used for transporting the certain leaders of the coalition for addressing the public meetings so as to keep them in good humour in the coalition.