Once again, the ruling Congress and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are at loggerheads in J-K. However, this time, the latter appears to be at the receiving end as the issue involves alleged corruption at the highest echelons of the Forest Department. PDP Minister Qazi Mohammad Afzal, who also holds the Urban and Housing Development portfolio, resigned from the Cabinet in protest after he was divested of the Forest portfolio by CM Ghulam Nabi Azad. Though Azad rejected his resignation, Afzal refused to attend the office till the Forest portfolio was returned to him. The PDP took up the issue with the Congress high command, but not as vociferously as in the past. The party’s stand became obvious from the fact that while Afzal sat at home waiting for the Forest portfolio to be restored to him, PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his daughter Mehbooba left for abroad. The reasons are not too difficult to fathom. Azad had made it clear that he was taking away the portfolio from Afzal only to clear up the mess in the Forest Department which Afzal himself had in the past complained about. True to his words, immediately after taking over the Forest Department, he took high profile Managing Director of the State Forest Corporation (SFC) Aijaz Bhat to task and constituted a high-level committee to probe reports about alleged corruption. Azad also took cognisance of complaints from a large number of farmers about their agricultural land turning barren due to effluents being discharged into their fields from pesticide units at Samba in Jammu region. The Chief Minister immediately replaced Pollution Control Board Chairman R D Tiwari and ordered a probe as to how the pesticide units had been allowed to function in the area. Many in the PDP attribute Azad’s actions to the acrimony between him and Finance Minister Tariq Hamid Qarra. Bhat happens to be a close relative of Qarra and Azad was reportedly not in favour of his appointment right from the beginning. However, his appointment was cleared by the Cabinet and Qarra was Forest Minister at that time. Similarly, the Pollution Control Board’s clearance to the pesticides units at Samba had come during Qarra’s tenure as Forest Minister. The fact remains that Bhat’s appointment as Managing Director of SFC had led to a lot of heartburn among senior forest officials who saw it as an accolade for an official who had remained abroad for years without any official sanction and had never been a conservator of forests. Similarly, there had been a lot of opposition among people in the newly created Samba district against the pesticide units there.
