SRINAGAR: Disgruntled National Conference MP Aga Ruhullah has given the Omar Abdullah–led government in Jammu and Kashmir a December 20 deadline to resolve the contentious reservation issue, warning that he will join youth-led protests if the matter remains unaddressed.
Ruhullah’s ultimatum has intensified tensions around the reservation policy, which has already triggered widespread anger among students and job aspirants from the Open Merit category across the UT.
Expressing frustration over the government’s inaction, Ruhullah said the administration had failed to grasp the “agony and hopelessness” among young aspirants. “This is suffocating an entire young generation and pushing them to the wall. Doesn’t even today’s case at Vaishno Devi University open their eyes to the urgency of resolving this issue?” he asked.
He recalled that the government had promised a “balanced reservation policy” last year. “Those six months turned into a year. Before the Budgam Assembly bypolls, they said ‘a few days’. Those few days have now stretched into more than a month,” he said.
Even if the issue is resolved later, he added, it would not make up for “the years lost and vacancies already gone”. Accusing the government of allowing personal egos to stall progress, he said he would step aside for a month if that helped. “Meet the students, resolve the issue rationally, take them into your fold. Curse me, turn them against me, but please resolve what concerns their careers,” he urged.
Warning of renewed agitation, Ruhullah said that if the government fails to settle the issue by the end of Parliament’s winter session on December 20, “I will sit with them again like last December — and this time, not for just a day.”
Last December, the MP had joined hundreds of students protesting outside the Chief Minister’s Gupkar residence, demanding an end to the controversial policy and the framing of a balanced one. Soon after, the Omar government formed a cabinet sub-committee on December 10 to examine the aspirants’ grievances.
The reservation policy has become a major flashpoint after the Centre expanded quotas and added more communities to reserved categories over the past five years. The system introduced by the Lt Governor’s administration before last year’s Assembly polls reduced the Open Merit share — representing the majority population — to just 30%, while raising reserved quotas to 70%, triggering fierce opposition.
Ruling NC members, along with the PDP and several other parties (barring the BJP), have backed the demand for rationalisation.
In October, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the cabinet had approved the sub-committee’s final report and forwarded it to Lt Governor Manoj Sinha. But with no update since, aspirants and political parties have repeatedly urged the government to make the report public.
Thousands of anxious youth are now awaiting the government’s next move — and whether it will reach out to Ruhullah to defuse the crisis.
Relations between the Chief Minister and Ruhullah remain strained. Omar Abdullah had blamed the MP for the NC’s defeat in the recent Budgam bypolls — the party’s first loss in its stronghold since 1977 — after Ruhullah declined to campaign.