Jammu: Omar Abdullah has become Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir for the second time, but there is significant difference in his first innings and the one which he has just started. When he became CM on January 5, 2009, in Zorawar Singh Auditorium of Jammu University, J&K was a full-fledged state. A state which had a Constitution of its own and that often tempted him to cock a snook at the Centre. In his second innings, he is the CM of a Union Territory (UT) where he has very limited powers.
The wheel has come full circle for him as from being the strongest CM of any state, the CM of UT of J&K is one of the weakest, if not the weakest. The Home Department, which deals with law and order, essentially police and Central security agencies deployed to help it, is not his domain. At the apex of civil administration in any district are the Deputy Commissioner (DC) and the Superintendent of Police (SP). He has no control over any of them in any of the 20 districts of the UT.
The all-India service officials, be it of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) or Indian Forest Service (IFS), are not answerable to Omar. They are all to Lieutenant Governor (LG) Manoj Sinha who is in every sense of the word a parallel centre of power. In the UT, the LG and the CM are two power centres who will find their paths often crossing one another’s if they are not careful.
Let’s hope that in the future, the relationship between these two apex authorities remains cordial and balanced. But that is easier said than done and it will be perhaps known as to how they deal with one another within the next six months. The example of Union Territory (UT) of Delhi is before us where the LG and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were, and are, often at odds. Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAM) now has one MLA in J&K also and it will be interesting to watch how that lone ranger behaves in the coming days.
What are people’s expectations from Omar, well Omar 2.0 to be exact? During the campaigning, his party, the National Conference (NC), virtually promised the moon to the electorate. The countless promises the party made, in case they came to power, when translated into real action on ground, will cost lots of money.
The party said it will provide 200 units of electricity free to each household. Well, on account of buying power from outside, J&K suffers a loss of over Rs 5,000 per annum meaning this is the subsidy it provides to consumers. The NC also said that it will provide Rs 5,000 per month to women of economically weaker section (EWS) category. How many women will be eligible to get this dole, something new that the NC the included in its manifesto this time?
The NC had gone overboard in announcing freebies to voters if it came to power and one freebie was the promise of giving 10 kg of free rice per person to households. The expense on this account, if and when implemented, will run into thousands of crores. Where will this money come from? It had also promised free travel to women in public transport, meaning the buses owned by the Roadways Transport Corporation (RTC). Incidentally, the RTC is bleeding already and its books are in red. Where will the money come for implementing this scheme for free rides for women?
Besides some of the promises listed above, it had also promised to start a marriage assistance scheme to pay Rs 75,000 to the needy families. Now that the NC has its own CM, the time for redeeming these promises has come.
The NC had also some promises in its manifesto which were not rooted in the realities of a UT government, being beyond jurisdiction. For example, it had promised to repeal Public Safety Act (PSA) which was passed in 1978 during the rule of Omar’s grandfather Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. At that time, this law which allows preventive detention was ostensibly passed to check smuggling of timber. However, it was used by Sheikh during his time to target his political rivals and after the onset of terrorism in 1989-90, it was widely used against secessionists.
Some other things promised in the NC manifesto included restoration of political and legal status of J&K. This means that the party has committed itself on paper for the restoration of pre-August 2019 status. Interestingly, the removal of Article 370 from the Constitution was something that the Central government did. If any decisions regarding the same are to be taken now, even they are the Centre’s jurisdiction.
Given all this, it would be interesting to watch what, if any, promises made by the NC in its manifesto gets fulfilled.
