Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, July 1: Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today accused the ruling PDP-BJP coalition of “shredding democracy to pieces” by sending a bill to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Land Act and the Transfer of Property Act to select committee.
A delegation of National Conference (NC) leaders led by Omar Abdullah today called on Governor N N Vohra and submitted two memorandums. “Through these memorandums, we submitted our apprehensions about the way democracy was shredded to pieces in the Legislative Assembly yesterday,” the former Chief Minister told reporters outside Raj Bhavan in Srinagar.
Omar said the first memorandum was on the “sabotage” of a bill to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Land Act and the Transfer of Property Act, which was referred to a Select Committee after Revenue Minister Basharat Bukhari moved a motion. “We saw in the Assembly yesterday that for the first time, a Government bill which was brought by a Minister, was recommended to be sent to a Select Committee by the same Minister, despite the majority of the members being in favour of the bill,” he said.
“NC, Congress, PDP and Independent MLAs were in favour of the bill’s passage and there was no need to send it to a Select Committee. But…to sabotage the bill, it was sent to a Select Committee on the basis of a voice vote,” Omar said.
The NC working president said that by this the credibility of institutions like the Assembly is lost. “We feel, this way, the credibility of the institutions, especially Assembly, is lost and this is an old habit of PDP. They also played with the Transfer of Property Act in their last Government, so it is happening for the second time,” he said.
Omar said another memorandum, submitted by the party to the Governor, was about the legislation to amend the Panchayati Raj Act. “They have passed a legislation in the Assembly yesterday and sent it to the Upper House for amending the Panchayati Raj Act, wherein they are proposing to elect Sarpanches indirectly via Panches rather than directly and we submitted our apprehensions on that as well to the Governor,” he said.
The NC leader informed the Governor through the memorandum that the Amendment [LA Bill Number 7 of 2016) was an overt attempt to weaken the system by scuttling the democratic principles and introducing the indirect process of the election of the Sarpanch, making a window for coercion, corruption and malpractices to manipulate the elections. “This is likely to have far reaching consequences and shall eventually discredit and weaken the Panchayati Raj System in the State”, the memorandum stated.
“The amended Bill is also likely to impact the newly created Blocks and their process of development, and shall undo the exercise done to make smaller administrative units for easy access of the people and focused, concentrated development”, the memorandum added.
“The Dignity and the Honour of the State Legislature has been dented and 30th of June, 2016 will go down in the history of the State Legislature as the darkest day”, the memorandum added.
The NC leaders appealed to Governor to make necessary interventions to uphold the Constitution of the State and to implore upon the State Government to safeguard the interests of the Permanent Residents of the State.
The NC leaders highlighted that J&K has an indigenous robust Panchayati Raj System which is the soul of the decentralization of the Democracy and the essence of it is to involve the people in the process of Planning, Execution & Monitoring of Developmental Process at the grassroots level. “The J&K Panchayati Raj Act was drafted after studying various models of the Panchayati Raj in different States of the Country and has stood the test of time, acclaimed as a model Legislation of Panchayati Raj worth emulation. From time to time it has been amended to further strengthen the Panchayati Raj in the State to ensure better governance and delivery”, the second memorandum stated.
Omar said that the Governor discussed the security situation of the State with the NC leaders. “The Governor discussed the current security situation with us and we shared our thoughts on that with him,” he said.
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