On August 5, 2019, Centre had revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu & Kashmir
J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah speaks during an interaction with the media. Pic/PTI
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday expressed hope that Jammu and Kashmir’s Union Territory status is a temporary phase and that the central government fulfils its promise of restoring its statehood. “For us, the biggest challenge is to get our statehood back. We the people are now expecting that the promises made to us will be fulfilled. The biggest promise is the restoration of statehood,” he said.
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“The Supreme Court in its judgement had also stated that the statehood should be restored as soon as possible. One year has passed since and we think one year should be enough,” said Abdullah. “It has been a little over two months since we came to power. It took us time to understand how the UT government works. We have been associated with the government earlier, but there is a vast difference between that form and the present form,” Abdullah said.
The Centre on August 5, 2019, revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and reorganised the state into two UTs. While J-K has a legislative assembly with limited powers, Ladakh is without a legislature. In December 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the Centre’s decisions to revoke special status and create the two UTs but told the Union government to restore the statehood of J-K as soon as possible. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have on numerous occasions, including in Parliament, said that the statehood of J-K would be restored at an appropriate time.
Dual governance ineffective
Abdullah said that the hybrid model of governance is not to anyone’s advantage and the systems work better when there is a single centre of command.
“Obviously, dual centres of power are not to anyone’s advantage. If dual centres were effective tools of governance, you would see it everywhere,” Abdullah told reporters at a media interaction. The chief minister said while there have been “differences of opinion on some issues”, there was no confrontation with the Raj Bhavan.
“Systems work better when there is a single centre of command. For the UT, the dual centres of command are inbuilt. There have been differences of opinion on some issues, but not on the scale at which it is being speculated. Such reports are just a figment of imagination.”
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