Tags:
Journalism of Courage
JAMMU, July 23: By issuing a show-cause notice to Moulvi Ifitkar Hussain Ansari, the party legislator from Pattan in Kashmir Valley, the Congress high command has put the Shia leader in an embarrassing position.
Ansari is the Housing and Urban Development Minister in the National Conference cabinet headed by CM Farooq Abdullah, while the State Congress is in the Opposition. Ansari, who was elected to the State Legislative Assembly as a Congress nominee during the last Assembly polls about two years ago, had openly campaigned for the ruling party candidates in Kashmir.
Senior Congress leaders have all along been asking the party high command to either ask Ansari to quit the Cabinet and join the Opposition in the State Legislative Assembly, or initiate disciplinary action against him. The Congress Legislature Party leader, Mehbooba Mufti, even accused the ruling party of engineering defections in the Opposition, despite having a "brute" majority in the Assembly.
However, their demand went unheeded due tothe absence of any party set-up and the factionalism prevailing in it. Even, one party faction owing allegiance to former Union minister and Rajya Sabha member from the State, Ghulam Nabi Azad, pleaded for strengthening the hands of Farooq. Congress party sources said the situation has changed with former Union minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s election, from Anantnag LS constituency.
