Omar Abdullah meets Amit Shah, discusses restoration of statehood to J&K

“We discussed the restoration of statehood to J&K and our experience as an elected government for the past two and a half months. We spoke about the ups and downs of these couple of months…,” Omar said after the meeting.

This was Omar’s second meeting with Shah since taking office as J&K CM on October 16. Omar and his party, the National Conference, have been pushing the issue of statehood for J&K with the Centre. The party has also remained critical of “dual power centres” in the state, where many powers are vested in the office of the Lieutenant Governor.

Since an elected government has taken office for the first time after J&K was reorganised as a Union Territory in 2019, the issue of the Transaction of Business Rules for J&K has also been a matter of concern for the UT government.

Omar said the business rules would be decided by the UT government and that “this does not concern the Government of India”. The Chief Minister underscored that business rules are to be set “by the elected government of Jammu and Kashmir. The Cabinet has to approve them and send them to the Lieutenant Governor”.

He said that a Cabinet sub-committee will finalise the business rules and the Cabinet will clear them before they are sent to L-G Manoj Sinha. “There is no role for the Government of India in this,” he said.

Meanwhile, as the Union Home Minister undertook a security review of the UT, the Chief Minister said, “The responsibilities of security as well as law and order are with the L-G. I have been repeating that militancy cannot be countered in a vacuum. For this, you have to take the people of J&K into confidence and for this, they have to involve the elected representatives.”