SRINAGAR: Keeping its word, the Omar Abdullah led government in its first cabinet meeting has passed a resolution on the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, sources said but there has been no official confirmation yet.
The cabinet headed by CM Omar Abdullah met at Civil Secretariat yesterday. The DyCM Surinder Choudhary, ministers Sakina Ittoo, Javed Dar, Javed Rana and Satish Sharma attended the first cabinet meeting of the newly elected government. Chief Secretary Atal Duloo also attended the cabinet meeting.
Sources said the first cabinet meeting passed a resolution on the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and urged the PM Modi-led central government to restore Statehood to J&K.
On August 5, 2019, the centre scrapped J&K’s special status and bifurcated erstwhile J&K state into two Union Territories --- Jammu and Kashmir (with legislature) and Ladakh (without legislature).
Sources said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would visit the national capital in the next few days and hand over the draft of the J&K cabinet’s first resolution urging the restoration of statehood to J&K to him.
Before assuming power, Omar had suggested that the first cabinet meeting should pass a resolution on the restoration of statehood to J&K and send it to central government. He has also pledged that J&K Assembly in its first session would pass a resolution on restoration of Article 370.
However, there has been no official confirmation yet on the passing of the resolution by cabinet in its first meeting. Neither has CM Omar Abdullah tweeted anything about it on X ( formally called Twitter), nor has J&K Information department issued any press release in this regard.
Reacting to the reported passage of the resolution by cabinet, former minister and Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Lone wondered why a resolution on statehood passed by the cabinet is “shrouded in mystery and secrecy.”
“I hope the CS of Jammu and Kashmir has notified it as is the protocol. And I very humbly state that the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is reflected in the Assembly and not in the cabinet,” he said.
Sajad, whom NC, PDP and Congress allege is BJP’s proxy, said cabinet is a majoritarian institution of governance”. It does not reflect all shades and opinions as per the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
"All across the country, to the best of my knowledge, the Assembly is the proper institution for addressing major issues like that of statehood or Article 370. When the NC Government passed a resolution on autonomy they passed it in the Assembly not through a cabinet resolution. What has changed now? I fail to understand why this resolution should not have been reserved for the Assembly. Why are we so keen to trivialise everything,” he added.
PDP leader and MLA Waheed Para criticized Omar’s first resolution, terming it as “nothing less than ratification of the August 5th, 2019 decision.”
“Omar Abdullah's first resolution on statehood is nothing less than ratification of the August 5th, 2019 decision. No resolution on Article 370 and scaling down the demand to mere statehood is a huge setback, especially after seeking votes on the promise of restoring Article 370,” Para tweeted.
The NC and PDP had contested the Assembly polls on plank of restoration of Article 370 while Congress had skilled Article 370 and focussed on restoration of statehood in its poll campaign for first Assembly polls in J&K post Article 370 abrogation.