The Assembly session has unfolded along predictable lines, almost appearing a replication of 2010 Assembly session. The opposition comprising National Conference, Congress, CPI (M) and other Kashmir-based Independent legislators held protests over the killings during the five-month long unrest in the Valley. The house witnessed raucous scenes, loud sloganeering and furious verbal exchanges between opposition and the PDP and BJP members. The opposition members even disrupted the Governor N N Vohras address.
Vohra tried to dispel public concerns about some of the contentious issues threatening to once again tip Kashmir into turmoil. For example, he clarified that the West Pakistani Refugees were not being made state subjects and instead Identification Certificates were being issued to enable them to get work in the paramilitary forces and other central government establishments. This identification does not change the status of the West Pakistan Refugees; they continue to be non-state subjects, Vohra said.
Similarly, putting the doubts on SARFAESI Act to rest, Governor said that even if Banks sell immovable mortgaged assets, they can do so only to state subjects. The ruckus lasted two days following which the Government on the second day itself took up the discussion on the prevailing situation after the Speaker, Mr Kavinder Gupta allowed the opposition members to move the motion in this regard in the House. In his speech, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah blamed the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for her casual approach during the unrest, also saying that the unrest in 2016 couldnt be compared with 2009 and 2010 as he hadnt blamed anybody else for it. The minister for Social Welfare Sajad Gani Lone thanked BJP for providing his family in Pakistan a visa to visit India.
Overall, the session so far has played out like a pantomime with both the government and the opposition doing their respective role-playing. In 2010, the PDP was enacting exactly the same role as is being played by the NC now. Then the NC was issuing justifications of almost similar import for the killings of 120 youth as PDP does to justify around 100 killings and several hundred blindings in latest uprising. In fact, Mehbooba has so far evaded the Assembly. She is, however, scheduled to speak on January 9 and defend her government’s response to the summer strife. However she has left nobody in doubt as to the position of her government on the issue blaming it on the separatist groups and Pakistan.
Unlike when they are held in Valley, Assembly sessions in Jammu are generally a low-key affair. And a part of the reason is that none of the two pre-eminent political outfits in the state, NC and PDP, sees the province responsive to the contested issues that raise temperature in Valley. But this session has turned out to be an exception. The Opposition has tried to keep the focus on the unrest and the killings so as to prevent an immediate political recovery for PDP-BJP coalition. However, Valley has been largely indifferent to the proceedings in the Assembly, in part because both PDP and NC are seen morally equivalent in terms of their record in governance.
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