Delimitation was done in J&K to help BJP: Omar Abdullah

Srinagar, Oct 7 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Wednesday that delimitation was carried out in the union territory to help the BJP, and that the SIR process is also being used to help the same party.

Talking to reporters here, Omar Abdullah alleged that the union territory has already suffered because of the delimitation done here.

“Delimitation was done in J&K to support the BJP. They are using SIR to help the same party. They are doing it elsewhere in the country, and they may also do it in J&K, but after the Supreme Court issued notice in the matter, it might not be that easy now to misuse Form 7 to help the BJP,” he said.

The chief minister said that had the report published in a leading national daily been wrong, the government would have sued the paper for defamation. “That no defamation was filed against the report of the newspaper proves the report was correct,” CM Abdullah said.

On the issue of cabinet expansion, Omar Abdullah said that after the upcoming GST meeting in Delhi, he would consult the party president, Dr Farooq Abdullah and then carry out the expansion.

As per the rules, J&K can have a council of ten ministers, including the chief minister. At present, there are six ministers in the cabinet, including the chief minister.

Omar Abdullah can expand his Council of Ministers by four and also reshuffle or drop any of the existing ministers.

The Chief Minister had offered one cabinet berth to the Congress party, which has six MLAs in the 90-member Legislative Assembly. Tariq Hameed Karra, the JKPCC president, has told reporters that his party will not join the cabinet unless statehood is restored to Jammu and Kashmir.

Ruling National Conference (NC) has 41 MLAs, the BJP 29, Congress six, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) four, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) one, CPI(M) one, Peoples Conference (PC) one, Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) one, and Independents are six. Of the six Independents, four are supporting the NC government.

–IANS

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