JAMMU: Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh on Saturday justified BJP’s opposition to police service restructuring which had prompted Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to leave a Cabinet meeting midway.
“This agenda came up at the end of the meeting. We sought for a deferral so that it can be studied as the matter pertains to police,” Singh told reporters here.
Mehbooba had on Friday left the Cabinet meeting midway after a rift with a BJP minister over her proposal to restructure Kashmir Police Service (KPS) officers’ cadre.
BJP ministers said the posts of IGs and DIGs should be created after promotion to and inductions into IPS.
“It was a minor issue. They wanted to do it. Our take was simple that it is a DoPT issue, posts cannot be given without induction into IPS,” Singh said.
BJP is not opposed to financial and monetary benefits and grades to KPS officers, but objects to giving ranks, he said.
“We only said that it should be discussed. Please give us time to study it,” he said.
Taking a dig at the authorities for failure ensure induction of KPS officers into IPS for the last five years, he said, “There is vacancy of 50 IPS officers for past five years. Their induction have been caught into litigation. We did not take any initiative in this regard. If it is resolved, over 50 officers would be inducted into IPS.”
Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in the country which has 50 per cent quota while rest states have only 30 per cent quota for induction into IPS and IAS.
RUMBLINGS IN PDP-BJP COALITION
Absence of BJP-PDP Coordination Committee in the second innings Friday created a piquant situation between the alliance partners as bickering came to the fore during the much awaited cabinet meeting in the civil secretariat complex.
The Group of Ministers headed by Prof Nirmal Singh, however, tried to save the situation from completely going out of hands but while doing so they too faced difficult situation.
The working of the Group of Ministers was also exposed as no ground work was done before taking up the issue of restructuring the Kashmir Police Service (KPS) officers cadre.
The Group of Ministers (GoM) was constituted by the Cabinet in its first meeting held on March 11,2016. The GoM was given the mandate to monitor the implementation of Agenda of Alliance besides serving the purpose of truncated coordination committee.
Headed by Dr Nirmal Singh, the GoM comprised four Ministers -two each from PDP and BJP including Forest Minister Lal Singh and Industries and Commerce Minister Chander Prakash Ganga from BJP, Works Minister Abdul Rehman Veeri and Finance Minister Dr Haseeb A Drabu from PDP.
On Friday when Chief Minister walked out of the cabinet meeting in a huff after facing resistance from her alliance partners Prof Nirmal Singh and Finance Minister Dr Haseeb Drabu rushed to the CM’s residence to salvage the situation. When Mufti Mohd Sayeed headed the alliance govt in its first avataar Prof Nirmal Singh was named head of the 10 member coordination panel.
Some of the contentious issues were discussed and consensus was created before taking up the matter in the cabinet for final approval.
Three MP’s from both the parties and two cabinet ministers each formed part of the coordination panel and allowed members to come up with their set of recommendations.
Ironically, the same was disbanded after the demise of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed.
After PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti took oath of office and started second innings as head of the alliance govt new coordination panel was not constituted. It was felt that the leaders of both the parties were capable of taking up the important issues before the state govt.
Political pundits, however, feel the experiment seems to have failed as the members of the GoM from the BJP were believed to have opposed the Chief Ministers proposal during the cabinet meeting. “If the coordination panel would have been operational the contentious issue would have been taken up before formally referring to the cabinet for approval”, said experts tracking rumblings between the alliance partners.