EARTH NEWS SERVICE Jammu,
Nov 29|15:
“The allocation of more departments viz Home, GAD, CAPD, Law, RDD and Agriculture is not likely to happen soon but the BJP’s Ministers of State are set to share more powers with the cabinet ministers in the existing departments”
The Earth News in its issue dated November 25 had exclusively reported that the BJP has sought a meeting with the Chief Minister and also convening of the coalition’s coordination committee to sort out issues of delegation of departments to the junior ministers and also conflict between at least three cabinet ministers.
The two Ministers of State from the Bhartiya Janta Party and another Independent who is aligned with them are set to get more share of power from their cabinet colleagues as a compromise formula to avoid collusion course between the two ruling coalition partners. The Earth News in its issue dated November 25 had exclusively reported that the BJP has sought a meeting with the Chief Minister and also convening of the coalition’s coordination committee to sort out issues of delegation of departments to the junior ministers and also conflict between at least three cabinet ministers. Even though the meeting of the coalition coordination committee is not being convened for engagement of almost half of its members in the ongoing session of the Parliament, but Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is reported to have agreed to find out a way for delegation of more powers to the BJP’s junior ministers. Currently BJP has two junior ministers namely Priya Sethi and Sunil Sharma while as another Minister of State Pawan Sharma is also from the BJP quota. The Earth News had pointed out the resentment is brewing up in the BJP camp for refusal of the PDP cabinet ministers to share proper powers with the Ministers of State as they deserve under rules provided by the constitution. BJP’s main contention was though allocation of more departments to its junior ministers but that doesn’t seem to be happening soon. However, in the first instance the Chief Minister has promised the BJP leaders to fine tune the roles and responsibilities of the cabinet ministers and the Ministers of State. Sources said that for the past few months the BJP’s state unit has been asking its centralleadership to take up with the PDP leadership some important issues of concern which are reportedly causing imbalance within the coalition. Even those longstanding issues still remain unaddressed many new issues are cropping up which are bringing the coalition partners in a confrontational mode. The main issue on which the BJP is upping its ante is the reallocation of the department of Ministers of State. In addition to the 18 Ministers of the Cabinet rank, the coalition government has six Ministers of State. As a mechanism devised during the previous regime of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the Minister of State from one party in the coalition is mostly allocated department of Cabinet Minister from other party. For example, the cabinet portfolio for the Health is with BJP, the Minister of State is from the PDP. However, in the present case all cabinet Ministers from the BJP have been made to share their departments with the Ministers of State from the PDP but the same formula is not being applied vice versa. The Power Development Department and Housing and Urban Development Department are with Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, the Minister of State Mohammad Ashraf Mir, who shares these departments, is from PDP. Similarly, while the Health Department is with Choudhary Lal Singh of BJP, the Minister of State in this department is Asea Naqash who also shares the Social Welfare department with Bali Bhagat of BJP. Another Minister of State from PDP, Abdul Majeed Paddar shares PHE, Forest, Animal Husbandry and Irrigation & Flood Control departments with three BJP Ministers viz Chowdhary Sukhnandan, Bali Bhagat and Sajjad Gani Lone. But the same principle has not been made to apply with the PDP cabinet Ministers. The Home and General Administration Departments are held by the Chief Minister himself but there is no Minister of State from BJP. Similarly, CAPD is held by Choudhary Zulfikar Ali does not have any MoS from the BJP. The other departments which do not have Ministers of State from BJP are: Law, Parliamentary Affairs, Relief and Rehabilitation held by Syed Basharat Bukhari, Rural Development held Abdul Haq Khan, Horticulture, Hajj and Auqaf held by Abdul Rehman Veeru and Agriculture held by Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura. The BJP believes that all departments which are strongly connected with the people on the ground are not being shared by PDP with the BJP. This issue is being raked for last several months but this time around the BJP wants to take it up on the coordination committee.
