In a first, Omar calls meet to discuss LG’s decision; Transfer of state officers becomes bone of contention

SRINAGAR: J&K CM Omar Abdullah has convened a meeting Friday to discuss growing tensions over lieutenant-governor (LG) Manoj Sinha’s recent transfers of officers, the first time he will examine and debate an administrative decision taken by the Centre-appointed authority.
The bone of contention emerged Tuesday when Sinha ordered transfers of 48

Jammu Kashmir Administrative Service

(JKAS) officers while the CM and other members of his

National Conference

(NC) were away for Eid holidays. NC did not name the Centre-appointed Sinha but asserted that no one would be allowed to “play with the democratic set-up”. NC has also taken up the issue with the Centre, party sources said.
Sources said Omar wrote Thursday to Union home minister Amit Shah and Sinha expressing concern after chief secretary Atal Dulloo did not comply with CM’s directive to rescind the transfers by the previous evening (April 2). The issue is likely to come up during Shah’s scheduled visit to J&K next week, the sources said.”
“The meeting (on Friday) will discuss many issues and on the top of agenda will be recent transfers of UT administrative service officers,” Tanvir Sadiq, NC member and spokesman, told TOI. Sadiq pointed out that the NC govt was democratically elected, sworn in last Oct, and both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Shah had hailed this political process. “We will not allow anyone to scuttle it,” Sadiq said.

NC chief whip Mubarik Gul has in a letter to NC legislators said Omar would chair the meeting at the residence of deputy CM Surinder Choudhary. “All are requested to kindly make it convenient to attend the meeting,” Gul wrote.
A power-sharing structure between the elected govt and LG in place after the Aug 2019 abrogation of special status under Article 370 that turned J&K into a

Union territory

has worked in the past six months since NC took office. According to NC, LG has powers to transfer IAS officers, while the elected govt wields similar authority over JKAS cadre.

Many NC leaders believed transfers of revenue officers, like SDMs and Tehsildars and projecting them as law-and-order officers, amounted to asserting power over the entire bureaucracy, from a peon to an IAS officer. They say these revenue officials are assigned law and order duty on occasions but that doesn’t bring them under LG. Since J&K became a UT, LG handles the home department.
Congress legislatorGA Mir supported ally NC’s position and said LG’s actions showed everything was not well within the J&K administration.
However, opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) dismissed NC’s “alleged outrage” over the issue, saying nothing would come out of Friday’s meeting. “NC has already surrendered its huge mandate, and to expect any resistance from it, is asking too much. The party has frittered away all opportunities to channel people’s aspirations and seek dignity for them, including constitutional rights. NC is conscious of BJP’s ability to destabilise them (but) resistance is a tall order,” PDP spokesman Naeem Akhtar said.
Political analyst Zafar Choudhary acknowledged “some political criticism” over transfers by LG Sinha but asserted that he drew his powers from a “written text stemming from the events of Aug 2019 which no one should pretend to be oblivious of”. “If nothing has been imagined, conceived or planned, leave aside done, to change the terms of engagement, there is no point for any knee-jerk reaction,” Choudhary said.