Governor’s revealation that had he looked to Delhi before taking a call on dissolution of Jammu & Kashmir assembly the Peoples’ Conference Chairman Sajad Gani Lone would have become Chief Minister speaks volumes about the BJP’s intents to rule Jammu & Kashmir by proxy. Keeping in view the non stop intervention of successive central governments’ in the working of the democratic institutions for imposing the political proxies of their own choices over the people of Jammu & Kashmir for the last seventy years even naives can’t doubt the claim of Satya Pal Malik that the incumbent central government headed by Narendra Modi led BJP wanted to impose Sajad Lone as its political proxy over the people of Jammu & Kashmir. However Satya Pal Malik’s argument that even Mehbooba Mufti had not the required numbers to form a government with the support of National Conference and Congress and inviting either of the two Sajad Lone or PDP would generate an atmosphere of horse trading is questionable on many counts as Mehbooba’s numbers even without the support of her party rebels and with the support of National Conference and Congress won’t come down below 50 MLAs against the required strength of 44 members in the house of 87 members.
He does not talk about the legal courses sought to be taken for defending article 35-A and article 370 but talks about corruption which has more grievously infected institutional working not in Kashmir but in Bihar the state where he was governor prior to his appointment as Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. Not the corruption but the interventions of the central government in the working of the institutions has eroded the faith of people in the electoral processes in Jammu & Kashmir and more so in Kashmir valley.
The BJP dissidents led by Gagan Bhagat throwing up a challenge to dissolution of Jammu & Kashmir assembly and PDP rebel MLAs without Imran Ansari and his uncle Abid Ansari showing intents of retaining their roots in PDP are sufficient enough to show the strength of the PDP with the support of National Conference and Congress in the dissolved assembly. The conduct of the floor test could have proved Satya Pal Malika man of integrity and people of Jammu & Kashmir would have been glad to see a governor taking the route to political neutrality. Had Governor Satya Malik been concerned about his political neutrality he won’t have amended the Jammu & Kashmir Municipal Act to allow secret ballot only to clear the decks for the election of a political defector as Mayor Srinagar Municipal Corporation and he won’t have also retracted from the statement over the irregularities in the recruitments in Jammu & Kashmir Bank. Lately he has amended Roshni Act invoked by the erstwhile Gh Nabi Azad led Congress-PDP Congress coalition government only to show his anti-Congressim tendencies before the central high command of the BJP. His tinkering with the laws governing working of key institutions like Jammu and Kashmir Bank is sufficient enough to indicate that he wants to create new controversies to divert the attention of the people from the real issues facing the people of Jammu & Kashmir. He does not talk about the legal courses sought to be taken for defending article 35-A and article 370 but talks about corruption which has more grievously infected institutional working not in Kashmir but in Bihar the state where he was governor prior to his appointment as Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. Not the corruption but the interventions of the central government in the working of the institutions has eroded the faith of people in the electoral processes in Jammu & Kashmir and more so in Kashmir valley.
