On Friday, the former Governor of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir Satya Pal Malik claimed that with only six MLAs Peoples Conference chief Sajjad Lone wanted to be JK’s Chief Minister just before the dissolution of the Assembly in 2018.
However, Lone reacted sharply reacted to the allegations calling it ‘verbal diarrhoea’ and accused Malik of being a chief accomplice in murders, arrests and abrogating the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Malik, who is now the governor of Meghalaya, described Lone as the “blue-eyed boy” of the Government of India, PTI reported.
The report quoting Malik said he had asked Lone to write to him about the support he enjoyed in the 87-member House. Lone said he had six MLAs but “told me if you administer me the oath, I will prove my majority in a week”.
Malik spoke of the circumstances in which he dissolved the Assembly in November 2018 although PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti had staked claim to form a government with the support of the Congress and the National Conference.
The PDP-BJP government headed by Mehbooba had earlier collapsed in June 2018 after the BJP pulled out of the coalition.
Quoting Malik, the report said the former governor had told Lone, “That is not the governor’s role and I will not do it. The Supreme Court will flog me. The next day the Supreme Court will say you summon the House. You will lose. I will not do this.”
The governor said it seemed that the PDP-NC-Congress combine may have had a majority but “foolishly” they had not held a formal meeting or passed a resolution or given a letter of support “to the lady (Mehbooba)”.
Malik told “The Wire” in an interview that he had spoken to the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley about the situation and sought directions from the GoI. He said he had told Jaitley that if he got a letter from Mehbooba Mufti staking claim to form the government, “I am bound to call her for oath”.
The GoI had not given him any advice and told him to do what he thought was appropriate. He had then dissolved the Assembly in November 2018, the report said quoting Malik.
Mehbooba Mufti wanted to reach the governor’s house with the support of 56 MLAs which included the Congress and the NC, but the letter could not be delivered as the fax machine of the Raj Bhavan in Jammu was out of order, he said.
Lone said that he is currently in London with his family and earlier too during the entire episode Malik mentioned, he was in London.
“Every time I am in London or on my way to London there is a person who gets hit by verbal diarrhoea. This person sitting on chair doled out in charity in lieu of being chief accomplice in murders, arrests and abrogating Article 370- wants now to be the sermoniser in chief,” Lone tweeted.
“Will someone tell this chronic verbal diarrhoea patient that during this entire episode I was in London. Hopefully when I come back we will have a lot to catch up and talk about. Right now—off to foreign shores. Family firs,” the Kashmir politician added in the next tweet.
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