Srinagar: This is the second week since the floods that hit Srinagar city and South Kashmir including Anantnag, Pulwama and Pampore. The administrative response was completely missing in response to these floods and infact the coalition Govt led by Umar Abdullah just evaporated within a few hours of the flooding in Srinagar. It seems the Govt and the Chief Minister havent learnt their lessons even after large scale damage has been caused to property and precious lives lost.
In response to the calamity that befell the State, the Chief Minister has been seen as an ineffective and infact a very indifferent leader, who makes his presence felt only by giving a few sound bites to national television channels. He has also been a part of the vulgar propaganda spread by a section of the Indian TV media that separatists in Kashmir are trying to gain political mileage out of the unfolding tragedy in Kashmir. Last week the Cm was seen as telling some TV anchors that people are coming from areas in Srinagar which have not been hit by floods and trying to whip up sentiment in the flood hit areas. Infact most TV channels have gone to town saying that flood victims have pelted stones on Army personnel while they were trying to evacuate them from flood hit areas. These sensationalist news anchors dont even bother to think that there is no way of getting stones and throwing them at army when people are marooned in 6-10 feet water. To deflect attention from his own Govts failures and ineptness, Omar Abdullah has readily obliged TV reporters and anchors by hitting out at miscreants.
As Chief Minister of the State and Head of the Govt, Omar Abdullah is expected to lead from the front in the rescue and rehabilitation of flood victims. All one saw was the CM taking an Air force chopper and dropping a few packets of food to people who were marooned in water. No one expects him to be dropping food parcels but rather making his administration work and being responsible to the people who elected him to the chief Ministers post. It seems he has not learnt any lessons from his previous blunders especially the mishandling of the political turmoil between 2008-2010. Not even a calamity and disaster of the scale being witnessed in J & K has taught him any meaningful lessons in good administration and governance. ”
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