Omar Abdullah is an Indian politician and the scion of one of the state’s most prominent political families, the Abdullah family. He is the 11th and the youngest Chief Minister of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, after forming a government in coalition with the Congress party, on 5 January 2009.
He was also a Union Minister of State for External affairs in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government, from 23 July 2001 to 23 December 2002. He resigned from NDA government in October 2002 to concentrate on party work.
Omar Abdullah said to the media that he would retire from politics if BJP gets a majority in Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. “The day BJP gets majority in Jammu and Kashmir I will take retirement from active politics and go into hibernation,” Omar told reporters in Doda district. He was responding queries on BJP’s mission of getting 44+ seats in the state Assembly elections which is expected to be held by year end. BJP has a total number of 11 seats in the present state assembly with the total strenght of 87.
Omar, like several politicians, have started introducing favorable policies as “Election Sops”. Well,the question we have to ask is do we really need such kind of CM in a state which is always open to the threat of terrorism.Omar seems to be in aggressive mood,something which he lacked in his last 6 years. But it is rightly said aggression without caution is dangerous for the person who possesses that attribute.He is feeling the heat after tasting defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. He wants to retrieve his party back in the upcoming elections.But most of his decision were taken in haste.
First of all, he increased the retirement age limit from 58 to 60. Didn’t he think how this decision is going to cost 42,000 graduates and 11,000 post graduates who are jobless in the state of J&K.Did he try to imitate what AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu did? But AP has a better GDP compared to that of J&K and the private sector of Andra generates a lot of revenue for its govt, unlike J&K.
Omar Abdullah even announced one lakh jobs to the youth. Well,that pretty amazing. But the point is how did he plan to provide 1 lakh jobs without the help of private sector? Even if J&K has potential of employing 1 lakh people, why didn’t he announce this earlier in 2008 when he won the elections and took the oath of CM?And they come up with excuses such as insufficient amount of money to pay their salaries…duhh!!
In 2011, He came up with brilliant recruitment policy where non-gazetted recruits would be paid a fixed monthly salary equivalent to 50% of the basic pay (Pay Band+Grade Pay) for the first two years at the minimum of the pay-band. For the next three years or during the remaining period of the total five years (if the period of probation has been extended) such an employee would be entitled to receive a fixed salary of about 75% of the basic pay (PB+GP).
In short, this happened due to scarcity of finance. So how does Abdullah propose to fill one lakh jobs in the coming months? A few days ago, he changed this policy and provided slender benefits to employees, presumably because of the elections.
During Abdullah’s tenure, Jammu and Kashmir became the number one state in corruption.The schemes that Abdullah has announced, will surely put the next government (if he loses) in an unnecessarily grim situation.
Providing one lakh jobs in a state where terrorism is already a major problem, in addition to an almost negligible private sector and with the state depending heavily on Central government funds will definitely not be an easy task. This brings us back to the same Question earlier “Is his resignation threat justified?”
– Vatsal Doshi
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