Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU/SRINAGAR, Apr 5: Four districts of Jammu region were left without any representation while North Kashmir in the Valley got highest representation in the Council of Ministry headed by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti with five Cabinet berths.
A review of the 23 members Council of Ministry including the Chief Minister by the Excelsior today revealed that Doda, Ramban, Udhampur and Poonch, the four out of six districts in Jammu region, have been left without a single representation in the Council of Ministry while Jammu district topped with three Ministers—two in Cabinet rank and one Minister of State.
Chenab Valley comprising three districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban, which gave the BJP four out of six Assembly seats, has again got only one Minister of State—Sunil Sharma from Kishtwar. In the previous PDP-BJP regime also, he was the lone MoS in the Ministry. This time, however, Sharma has got Independent charge of Tourism apart from other portfolios.
Doda and Ramban districts with two Assembly seats each, has no representation in the Ministry. BJP represents both Assembly seats of Doda and one in Ramban district.
Udhampur district having three Assembly seats—Udhampur, Ramnagar and Chenani—has also been divested of representation in the Council of Ministry with the dropping of Independent MLA from Udhampur, Pawan Gupta, who was Minister of State for Finance and IT in the Mufti Sayeed regime from the BJP quota.
While Gupta represents Udhampur, both other two Assembly seats of the districts (Ramnagar and Chenani) have BJP MLAs.
Poonch district with three Assembly seats has one each MLA of PDP (Poonch), NC (Mendhar) and Congress (Surankot). This district, like the previous Government, is without representation in the Ministry. However, its neighbouring border districts of Rajouri has two Cabinet Ministers—BJP’s Abdul Ghani Kohli (Kalakote) and PDP’s Choudhary Zulfkar Ali (Darhal).
Reasi has this time got representation in the Ministry with the induction of lone BJP MLA from the district Ajay Nanda (Reasi Main) as the Minister of State for Finance and Planning.
Representation of Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts in the Council of Ministry remained the same. While Jammu has three berths—two in Cabinet and one MoS, Kathua has two Cabinet Ministers (Dr Nirmal Singh and Lal Singh) and Samba one (Chander Prakash Ganga).
Jammu has two Cabinet Ministers Bali Bhagat and Sham Choudhary and one MoS—Priya Sethi.
North Kashmir has the highest representation in the State Cabinet with 5 Cabinet Ministers while Central Kashmir has one cabinet Minister and South Kashmir three Cabinet Ministers including Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
Central Kashmir comprising of three districts including Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal comprises of 15 Assembly constituencies has only one Cabinet Minister, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura, who represents Chrar-e-Sharief constituency. It is also represented by one Minister of State, Asiya Naqash, who represents Hazratbal constituency of Srinagar district. The summer capital, Srinagar, has no representation in the Cabinet and so has Ganderbal district.
Srinagar district has eight Assembly constituencies, Ganderbal two and Budgam five. During the tenure of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as Chief Minister from 2015-2016, Srinagar district was represented by one Cabinet Minister, Syed Altaf Bukhari and two Ministers of State. The two MoS were Mohammad Ashraf Mir of Sonawar constituency and Asiea Naqash from Hazratbal constituency. Bukhari and Mir were dropped by the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
North Kashmir comprising of three districts including Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara has 15 Assembly constituencies and has got lion’s share with five Cabinet ministers. They are Abdul Haq Khan, who represents Lolab constituency, Basharat Bukhari, who represents Sangrama, Sajjad Gani Lone, who represents Handwara and Imran Raza Ansari, who represents Pattan constituency of Baramulla district. Naeem Akhtar, an MLC, who hails from Bandipora district of North Kashmir also has Cabinet berth. However, there is no MoS from North Kashmir.
South Kashmir comprising of four districts of Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian has 16 Assembly constituencies got two Cabinet berths and two Ministers of State. The Cabinet Ministers include, Abdul Rehman Veeri, who represents Bijbehara constituency and Haseeb Drabu, who represents Rajpora constituency.
The two MoS include Syed Farooq Andrabi, who represents Dooru constituency and Zahoor Ahmad Mir, who represents Pampore constituency. Above all, the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti also hails from Bijbehara township of Anantnag district.
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