Srinagar, Oct 31 — The closed-door meeting of nearly 20 disgruntled MLAs of J&K's ruling National Conference (NC) on Friday evening might not have yet become a situation where the knives have been drawn, but the dissidents challenging the authority of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah are in the open now.
The trigger for the dissent in the otherwise family-driven NC was provided by the recent reshuffle/expansion of the cabinet by Omar Abdullah. Many senior NC MLAs like Mubarak Gul, Abdul Majeed Larmi, and Nazir Ahmad Gurezi had been expecting inclusion in the council of ministers, or at least someone at the top had given them an impression of being considered for elevation.
To their surprise, Omar Abdullah included one of the senior-most NC leaders and MLAs, Ali Mohammad Sagar, in his cabinet, but chose to retain others in the outgoing cabinet, except Satish Sharma, an independent MLA from the Chhamb constituency of Jammu district, who had supported the NC government.
The first voice to rise against the reshuffle of the cabinet was the six-time MLA Mubarak Gul. As he left the oath-taking ceremony of the new cabinet, he told reporters that he had attended 20 swearing-in ceremonies of ministers, but had been dropped each time.
To pacify, Gul, NC President, Dr Farooq Abdullah nominated Gul as the new General Secretary of the party at the Nawa-e-Subha party headquarters as others like Sagar and Nasir Aslam Wani, advisor of the Chief Minister, garlanded and hugged him.
This damage control exercise did not buy favour from Gul, whose supporters continued protests asking him to part ways with the NC.
Yesterday evening, 18 dissident NC MLAs, including Gul, Larmi, Farooq Ahmad Shah, Hilal Ahmed Parry, Hasnain Masood and others assembled at the house of party MLA, Qaiser Jamshed Lone and held a meeting lasting over two hours.
Sources privy to the meeting said the disgruntled MLAs have decided to call on the party President and apprise him of the growing discontent among the people with regard to the functioning of the Omar Abdullah-headed government.
The group of MLAs decided that they were not parting ways with the party, but were eager to ensure that the party remains strong and united.
After he learnt about the meeting of dissidents, Dr Abdullah issued a statement saying that Sagar would continue to work as party General Secretary. The one-line statement had no mention of his decision two days back to nominate Gul to the post.
Dr Abdullah’s decision is seen as an assertion of authority by the NC high command. It also contains a subtle message to the dissidents that the party high command might not succumb to pressure tactics.
The NC has 41 MLAs in the 90-member legislative Assembly. It has the support of 6 Congress MLAs and one CPI-M legislator, while five independents have also pledged support to the NC government. Under the anti-defection law, the breakaway group would need 2/3rd of the party strength to escape disqualification under the anti-defection law.
In layman's terms, the NC dissidents need 35 members to claim to have formed a constitutionally valid breakaway group. Even though the arithmetic makes it highly unlikely that the dissidents can pose an immediate threat to the Omar Abdullah government, yet theys have chosen to come in the open, which means the party high command can no longer trust their loyalty and vice versa.
How Omar Abdullah steers out of the troubled waters with the help of his father, the wily old Dr Abdullah, now needs to be closely watched.
Yet there is no doubt that the authority of the Chief Minister has been challenged by his own MLAs, a development by no means welcome for the Abdullah family or the NC.