New Delhi, October 18
The Congress is in no hurry to pick up the reigns of the government in Jammu and Kashmir early next month in keeping with the power sharing arrangement with state Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP especially as the relief and rehabilitation for the October 8 earthquake affected needs to be accorded highest priority.
What is emerging that the Congress and the Manmohan Singh government are acutely aware of the exigencies at hand following the earthquake which has killed more than 1300 people and rendered thousands of others homeless in Jammu and Kashmir. The situation is critical with winter round the corner.
Clearly, the opinion is that Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad cannot be spared as the Chief Minister at present. Mr Azad is the Congress party’s first choice and the leadership does not want to send wrong signals at this critical juncture of asking the Mufti to step down in keeping with the power sharing arrangement reached three years back in 2002.
Sources in the Manmohan Singh
government and the Congress are in no way faulting Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for the natural calamity in the state. They appear pleased with the relief and rehabilitation work undertaken by the Mufti government and bringing about a change of guard as Chief Minister at this point might create avoidable impediments in the massive relief operations.
Even though for all official purposes, the Congress has not made its position public and on his part Mr Azad had made it clear that the Mufti will make way for a Congress Chief Minister, the overbearing view in the party high command is that the status-quo should not be disturbed and wait for the appropriate time which can stretch to a few months or more.
Amid the subterranean reluctance on the part of Mr Azad to move to Jammu and Kashmir, a section of the JKCC has added a new dimension by demanding that the state should have a Hindu Chief Minister. At the same time another section has maintained there no person better suited that Mr Azad who hails from Doda to hold the reigns of power at the head of the Congress-PDP alliance.
Certain Congress leaders go to the extent of observing that in many ways the Mufti is a Congressman at heart having been with the party in the past. Clearly, the effort of the Congress is to send a clear signal in this hour of tragedy and crisis that the party is not hankering for power and the most important thing is to wipe the tear from every eye after the tragic earthquake.
Another Congress leader believes that Mr Azad is the best Parliamentary Affairs Minister in their ranks and changing him at this point might throw up the imponderables which cannot be ruled out in any coalition arrangement either at the Centre or in the state.
