STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In the absence of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who will be the acting Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir?
This question is doing rounds of corridors of power, especially at a time when security situation is very challenging in the Kashmir Valley and the Chief Minister has proceeded for performing Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, performed by Muslims that can be undertaken at any time of the year.
In the absence of Chief Minister for over a week it is important to have someone monitoring the charge of the Home Department on daily basis to ensure security situation does not slip out of the hands due to sporadic incidents of violence.
Though senior State Government authorities are on their toes to ensure law and order situation does not spiral out of hands, absence of head of the government and formal notification creates a piquant situation for the government functionaries.
Who will be held responsible and who will actually call the shots to smoothly run the State administration is an all important question confronting the State Government machinery?
Since the Chief Minister is herself looking after the charge of the Home Department and is also Chairman of the Unified Command, the command structure in the popular government should have been notified to avoid further confusion in the rank and file of the government machinery.
Though no formal notification has been issued in this regard, the Deputy Chief Minister, being the senior most minister in the State Cabinet is expected to look after the affairs of the State.
It is, however, not clear whether the Chief Minister has delegated powers to the Deputy Chief Minister to chair the cabinet meetings, if need arises.
There are numerous instances in the past when either the senior most cabinet minister had been handed over the formal charge through a formal notification. When Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikhsit underwent surgery in July 2001 her cabinet colleague and senior most minister Mahinder Singh Saathi was handed over the charge of acting Chief Minister. Similarly, in Jammu and Kashmir, Mangat Ram Sharma, then Deputy Chief Minister, had acted as the Chief Minister during the tenure of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Shah, then a cabinet minister, in the ministry led by Dr Farooq Abdullah earlier.
In January 2004, when the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had been to Mecca for Haj pilgrimage, Mangat Ram Sharma had presided over the Cabinet meeting which, interallia, had approved the Rehabilitation Policy for the return of militants into the mainstream.
