Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said he would take up the expansion of his Council of Ministers after the upcoming GST Council meeting in Delhi, with the move likely to involve consultations with National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah.
Speaking to reporters in Srinagar, Omar Abdullah said he would consult the party president after returning from Delhi and then proceed with the cabinet expansion.
As per the rules, J&K can have a Council of Ministers comprising up to 10 members, including the Chief Minister. The cabinet currently has six members, leaving scope for four more appointments. The Chief Minister can also reshuffle or drop existing ministers as part of the exercise.
The proposed expansion comes amid uncertainty over Congress joining the government. Omar Abdullah had offered one cabinet berth to the Congress, which has six MLAs in the 90-member Assembly. However, JKPCC president Tariq Hameed Karra has said the party will not join the government unless statehood is restored to Jammu and Kashmir.
The ruling National Conference has 41 MLAs, while the BJP has 29. Congress has six, PDP four, and AAP, CPI(M), Peoples Conference and Awami Ittehad Party have one each. There are six Independents, four of whom support the NC-led government.
The Chief Minister also criticised the delimitation exercise in Jammu and Kashmir, alleging that it was carried out to benefit the BJP.
“Delimitation was done in J&K to support the BJP. They are using SIR to help the same party,” he said, referring to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Omar alleged that J&K had already suffered because of the delimitation exercise and claimed that the SIR process could similarly be used to benefit the BJP.
He said the Supreme Court’s notice in a related matter could make it more difficult to misuse Form 7, which is used for objections to entries in electoral rolls.
Reacting to a report published in a leading national daily, Omar said the government would have initiated defamation proceedings had the report been incorrect.
“That no defamation was filed against the report of the newspaper proves the report was correct,” he said.
