National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Monday cited lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha’s illness as the reason for the further delay in the cabinet expansion in Jammu and Kashmir.
He said once Sinha is back, the much-awaited cabinet expansion will take place.
“The cabinet expansion should happen as it is very important. Our J&K has many regions, religions and topographies. Now we can have only nine ministers. The Congress, which contested the polls in alliance with the NC jointly, has refused to join the government unless J&K gets statehood. Senior Congress leaders have been saying that statehood, not cabinet berths, is their priority. The NC government currently has five ministers, including deputy chief minister Surinder Gupta. Leaders are hopeful that Omar will balance regional representation while addressing a restless electorate demanding immediate results.
When J&K was a state, we used to have 25 ministers.
As additional general secretary of the party, I feel it is very important to have a cabinet expansion,” Ramzan said, adding that it is the prerogative of the CM to decide who will be part of the cabinet. Last year, he said that expansion could follow the Rajya Sabha and bypolls. “Induction of a few more ministers is on the cards,” he had said soon after the NC won three of the four Rajya Sabha seats. Though several names are doing the rounds as possible cabinet picks, leaders privy to the developments said all three could be from the NC.
Earlier, Omar had dropped repeated hints about a cabinet expansion.
However, the expansion was further delayed after the meeting, prompting opposition parties to attribute it to internal bickering within NC. “The lieutenant governor has been ill. He was not here.
J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah had earlier said that after consultation with NC president Farooq Abdullah, cabinet expansion will take place after the GST council meeting that ended last week. When he arrives, the cabinet will be expanded,” Farooq told reporters. Even senior colleagues of the CM, Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzan and Nasir Aslam Wani, had said that cabinet expansion was the CM’s prerogative. However, Ramzan, a two-time former minister and now Rajya Sabha member, said the expansion should take place without any delay.
