With regional bias coming to the fore once again, it seems battle lines have been drawn for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections. The first salvo was fired by none else than PHE Minister Sham Lal Sharma, who is from Congress, by putting-in papers on the regularisation issue of daily and work-charged employees under his ministry, who have put-in more than 10 years as casual hands on pecuniary salaries. The minister is part of National Conference-Congress Coalition Government and has been vociferous as far as Jammu’s cause is concerned. The issue revolves around regularisation of over 17,000 daily rated workers of Jammu Division which the Cabinet Sub Committee has approved in its last meeting preceding the elections. The hurdle came from National Conference ministers who were allegedly pressuring him to include 500 of their workers, which Sharma did not agree as matter of principle. This led the PHE Minister to put in his papers to his party leader. He has alleged that because of their regional bias the ministers from Kashmir have sabotaged the much awaited move on this human issue. There is no doubt that ministers from both the regions have taken stand on moral grounds i.e. regularising their workers but the irony is that with Sham Lal submitting his resignation, which government has to accept it, what will be the fate of the regularisation exercise? Will it be pushed under the din of election? Or will the employees take a legal recourse to get the Cabinet decision implemented? Or will it meet the fate of many other Cabinet decisions which have not seen the day’s light?
