Jammu & Kashmir
MLAs were receiving ‘terror threats’, says JK Guv Malik on decision to dissolve assembly
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik Thursday stated that his decision to abruptly dissolve the assembly came as a result of MLAs receiving ‘terror threats’ and ‘directions to form the government’, Indian Express reported.
“I had been receiving reports from various quarters, including intelligence agencies, for the last week to ten days that in efforts to form the government, the atmosphere has been made vicious,” Malik said, as per the report.
“I had been receiving reports from various quarters, including intelligence, that the atmosphere has been so vitiated that money is being offered at large scale. People are being threatened and even issued terrorist threats. This is how efforts are being made to form government. How could I have allowed it?,” Malik asked.
Whne inquired on PDP and NC leaders’ charge that the Governor’s House did not receive Mehbooba Mufti’s fax Wednesday staking claim to form government, Malik said that his office was closed on account of Eid.
He added there was no one in his office to even serve him food and that the party leaders could have sent it to him a day earlier.
“Even if they had delivered it to us, it would have made no material impact in view of reports received by me during the past ten days,” Malik said.
Even PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti had been complaining of attempts to break her party, the Governor said, adding that others were talking about attempts to create an unholy alliance by parties which had nothing in common, according to the report.
“Those crying foul have themselves been asking me for last five months to dissolve the Assembly. However, I had been keeping it alive as MLAs were having funds and public works were going on. The political process was halfway through, but it was on,” Malik said, as per IE.
Commenting on NC and PDP, Malik said that they were the people who had been opposed to urban and rural local body elections.
This (government formation attempts) would have adversely hit the security forces and police efforts to successfully conduct the ongoing panchayat elections, he stated.
The Governor described the PDP-NC efforts to stitch an alliance for government formation as “unholy”.
He said, “This was a power-hungry alliance and for self-preservation, to avoid split in their respective parties. There has been a lot of dissatisfaction among both the parties.”
In his order which was issued with immediate effect minutes after PDP party leader Mehbooba Mufti had staked claim, Governor Malik citing ‘multiple sources’, said that the dissolution of the Assembly came in the wake of the ‘impossibility of forming a stable government by the coming together of political parties with opposing political ideologies’ and called the alliance ‘nothing but an attempt to gain power rather than to form a responsive government’.
Following the dissolution, Omar Abdullah, Former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir (JK) questioned the timing.
“JKNC has been pressing for assembly dissolution for 5 months now. It can’t be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba letter staking claim the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears,” he wrote on Twitter.
Earlier, Senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari had said that the senior leaders of the National Conference, PDP and the Congress have agreed to make an alliance in order to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Bukhari, according to reports, was emerging as the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance, however he said that right now he dosen’t know anything beyond the fact that an alliance has been agreed upon to protect the special status of the state.
He also informed that an official announcement regarding the alliance will be made in one or two days.
Earlier, Senior Congress Leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had confirmed that talks between the three parties are already going on.
While speaking to Free Press Kashmir, J&K Pradesh Congress Committee president G.A. Mir had said that he had no information about the meeting, however, he is not against the idea, “given the way communal forces have/ are planning to execute venomous ideas in the state.”
“If, on a national level, like minded people are putting forward their ideas, making it a role model and turning it into one single voice to fight against communal forces, won’t be wrong,” said Mir adding, “The naked-dance BJP has been performing and plans on doing here are evident by the way situation has turned tense here for last 4 years.”
The development happened a day after PDP heavy weight Muzaffar Hussain Baig said that he was ready to join a ‘third front’ if it emerges in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the BJP has said that the three have come together on directions of Pakistan.
In a hurriedly called press conference in Jammu at the BJP headquarters, in reaction to the alliance, BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said, “These parties are coming together to form government on directions of Pakistan just to keep BJP away.”