BJP, Cong to boycott, PDP also likely to stay away
Arvind Sharma
JAMMU Tawi, Oct 26: The much-awaited reshuffle in the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s council of ministry in the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is going to be a low-key affair and a showdown of only the ruling National Conference (NC) as not only its alliance partner, the Congress, but the main Opposition, BJP will also boycott the oath ceremony.
The government has sent invitation to all the 90 MLAs of J&K Assembly belonging to different parties to attend the oath taking ceremony to be held tomorrow on Tuesday at Lok Bhawan, Srinagar.
The oath taking ceremony is most likely to be a function of the ruling NC as the Congress, the NC’s coalition partner, and the main opposition party, the BJP have decided to boycott the ceremony.
Apart from this, the sources said that the PDP is also most likely to boycott the ceremony to be held tomorrow at Srinagar.
The boycott of the Congress raises serious questions over continuation ofNC-Cong alliance in J&K. The Congress has its stated position that it will not join the government in J&K till Statehood is restored.
“We will not attend the oath taking ceremony to be held tomorrow,” former minister, and senior Congress leader, GA Mir, said when contacted by the Northlines.
Similarly, all the BJP MLAs have also decided to boycott the oath taking ceremony. “We have decided not to attend the ceremony,” the BJP MLAs, Arvind Gupta and Vikram Randhava told the Northlines.
It may be mentioned here that in the 90 member House of the J&K Assembly, the NC has 41 MLAs, the BJP has 29, the Cong has 6 MLAs, while the PDP has 4 MLAs.
There are 7 independents. The AAP, People’s Conference (PC) and the CPI (M) have one MLA each in the 90 member J&K Assembly.
All the five incumbent ministers have submitted their resignations ahead of the upcoming swearing-in ceremony.
Under constitutional guidelines that strictly cap cabinet strength at ten percent for the 90-member Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, the newly reconstituted Council of Ministers will feature nine ministers working alongside Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.