Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Friday hit out at the Lieutenant Governor administration, claiming that arbitrary transfers and the use of bulldozers by the Raj Bhavan are part of a “conspiracy” to “malign” the elected government in the Union territory.
Abdullah was reacting to the demolition of several structures, including the house of a journalist in Jammu on Thursday, by the Jammu Development Authority (JDA). The demolition has been widely criticised.
“The officers posted by Raj Bhawan use bulldozers independently, without the elected government’s permission and without consulting the concerned minister. It indicates a clear conspiracy to tarnish the image of the elected government,” Abdullah told reporters here.
The chief minister emphasised that this is the reason his government has been stressing the need to have the authority to assign field staff within their departments.
“It is okay that you post principal secretaries, commissioner secretaries and additional chief secretaries, etc, but the CEOs, etc, of the development authorities should be posted by the elected government. The revenue staff should be posted with our permission. Regrettably, officers are assigned to these posts without any discussion with us. Then those officers take dictation from somewhere else, take out bulldozers and start the action,” he added.
Abdullah alleged that a conspiracy is afoot and that these actions appear to be targeting a specific community.
“Is there only this single place in Jammu where allegations of encroachment have been levelled? I have asked the department to furnish the full list of the JDA wherever there is an illegal encroachment on JDA land. I also want to see why this single person was targeted by the authorities and if his religion is the reason for that. Because it can’t be that there is merely a single allegation of encroachment on all JDA land,” he said.
Referring to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s earlier remarks that there was no interference in the working of the elected government, the chief minister said, “But, this is a clear case of interference. Someone should show me a file indicating that the concerned minister was informed or that any discussion occurred with us.” The chief minister maintained that while no one supports illegal encroachments on government land, “these people who use the bulldozer in a pick-and-choose manner to malign the elected government need to mend their ways”.
He mentioned that he would have taken action against the officer involved if that officer had been appointed by the elected government.
“How can you take such a huge step without the permission of the minister? Somewhere, I smell a conspiracy here. If this had happened only once, I might view it as an error, but this is an ongoing pattern designed to malign and defame the elected government only because these people cannot digest the election results,” he added.
He challenged the JDA CEO to publish a list of illegal encroachers in the newspapers.
“Let him publish the names of the encroachers in Jammu, then we will see who is there. Solely targeting individuals based on religion or location indicates nothing but a political conspiracy,” Abdullah said.