Srinagar: With the Modi government insisting on full and exclusive control over law and order in Jammu and Kashmir, chief minister Omar Abdullah was kept out of a high-level meeting in Srinagar on April 8 at which Union home minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparedness of security forces and intelligence agencies in Jammu and Kashmir.After a one-on-one meeting at the Raj Bhavan with Abdullah on Tuesday morning that lasted 20 minutes, Shah reviewed the progress of various developmental projects taken up by the BJP-led Union government in Jammu and Kashmir following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019.Besides Abdullah, the review meeting was also attended by lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha, chief secretary Atul Dulloo and other senior officers of the Jammu and Kashmir administration.After the meeting ended, sources said that Shah turned to one of his staff and asked him to call in the officers sitting outside the meeting room.The officers included Union home secretary Govind Mohan, Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka and army chief General Upendra Dwivedi, besides others who had come to attend the meeting of the unified command headquarter, the highest decision-making body for security-related matters in Jammu and Kashmir.When Jammu and Kashmir was a state, the unified command was headed by the chief minister. After the erstwhile state was demoted into a Union territory, the Union government has been directly in charge of Jammu and Kashmir’s security.“Baahar baithay afsaron ko bulayien [tell the officers sitting outside to come in],” Shah told the officer, sources said.As the officer obliged, Shah turned to Abdullah, who had already vacated his chair and seemed to be in the process of moving out of the meeting room.“Achha Omar saheb dhanyawad [OK Mr Omar thank you]”, Shah told the chief minister.Abdullah, who is vice-president of the ruling National Conference (NC), later walked out of the meeting room even as the Jammu and Kashmir chief secretary and director general of police Nalin Prabhat stayed back and participated in the security review meeting besides some senior officers of other intelligence agencies and security forces.On February 12, the chief minister was snubbed by Sinha, who kept him out of a security review meeting at the police control room in Srinagar.The decision had not gone down well with the ruling party, which had taken exception to the sidelining of the chief minister.Law and order has ceased to be the domain of the chief minister after Jammu and Kashmir was demoted into a Union territory. However, the ruling party has in the past said that the chief minister should be made part of meetings on security issues of J&K.The bizarre spectacle of the Union government excluding an elected chief minister from a high-level security meeting about his own state has brought into sharp focus Amit Shahi’s failure to deliver on his commitment to restore J&K’s statehood.Professor Noor Ahmed Baba, former dean of social sciences at the University of Kashmir, said that the chief minister was conscious of his limitations in the present power distribution structure under which the Union government has kept the security issues out of the jurisdiction of J&K’s elected government.“The chief minister has been saying that he wants J&K’s statehood to be restored. He has taken up the issue with the Union government but the situation remains unchanged,” he said.Srinagar-based political analyst Ashiq Hussain said that the BJP’s policy was to “trample opposition as well as allies”.“He (Abdullah) should have known better how the saffron party has dealt with its former allies such as Mehbooba Mufti, Uddhav Thackeray, Naveen Patnaik and others. The party will do its best to finish Abdullah politically. No amount of shawl diplomacy or any other political gimmick will save him,” he said.The meeting was held against the backdrop of the rising incidents of violence along the Line of Control, which has witnessed a dramatic spike in infiltration and attacks on civilians and security forces in recent months.Riding on an anti-BJP wave in the valley last year, Abdullah’s party won 42 seats in the 90-member assembly. But after he was sworn into office in October, his conciliatory approach with the BJP and the Union government has been described by the opposition as a “sellout for crumbs of power”.Abdullah has defended his approach, saying that he was looking for “a constructive relationship in the true spirit of federalism” with the Union government, which has dithered on its promise of restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.With limited powers to control policymaking and a rigid bureaucracy that panders to the Union government, many believe that Abdullah’s attempts to appease the saffron party could cost him politically.Shah arrived in Jammu and Kashmir on April 6, following which he visited the border outpost of the Border Security Force in Kathua district and also met the families of four policemen who were martyred in a counter-insurgency operation in the volatile district.He also had a closed-door meeting with the leaders of saffron party’s Jammu and Kashmir unit and members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at the residence of senior BJP leader Sunil Sharma, who is also the leader of opposition in the assembly.On Monday, Shah arrived in Srinagar and met the family of deputy superintendent of police Humayun Bhat, who was killed in a fierce gun battle in Kokernag on September 13, 2023.The home minister, who was accompanied by Sinha and Abdullah, offered condolences to the family of the slain officer who was posthumously awarded the Kirti Chakra.Shah is scheduled to leave for the national capital tonight.Earlier this week, a photoshoot involving Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah at Srinagar’s Tulip Garden with Union minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju, who introduced the controversial Waqf Amendment Bill in parliament, had drawn flak from opposition parties.Note: This article has been edited since publication to add two quotes from analysts.
