M A I N   N E W S

All’s well in J-K, alliance with NC intact: Congress
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 29
The Congress today downplayed talk of trouble with the National Conference, its alliance partner in Jammu and Kashmir, and said the political bond between the two was intact and there was no cause for worry or alarm.

Speaking to The Tribune on the issue, Ambika Soni, Congress general secretary in- charge of J&K, said the NC-Congress were together in the state and that she had recently had a “very good meeting” with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. She said she had requested him for an audience to discuss the controversial issue of creation of new administrative units in the state.

Omar Abdullah is reported to be miffed with the Congress, which has been seeking the establishment of more administrative units in J&K than those proposed by the Mushtaq Ganai Committee set up by the state government.

Following the Congress apprehension of discrimination with other divisions of the state if only 900-odd units were set up, a Cabinet Sub Committee under senior Congress leader and J&K Deputy CM Tara Chand was formed to look afresh at the issue.

Ambika Soni today said the Congress had reassured Omar that the report of the Cabinet Sub Committee, which comprises three Congress ministers and three NC ministers, was ready for submission and the party was as much interested in establishing the administrative units as was the NC.

“The Cabinet Sub Committee was given two extensions and its deadline ends on January 31. We are told its report is ready. We have reassured Omar Abdullah on that count. In fact, to make sure the report is in the final stages and what we have told the CM is correct, I had an elaborate meeting with all our senior J&K ministers who are part of the committee yesterday. The report will be submitted now and we are told the state Cabinet is meeting on February 1. It can then consider the new and the old report in entirety,” Soni said, adding that there was no cause for differences between the NC and the Congress.

On the future of the alliance, Soni said she did not know where from the topic of Omar Abdullah’s resignation had cropped up. “I had requested Omar for a meeting and he was kind enough to have come. We assured him that we are with him on the issue of establishment of administrative units,” she said.