After appearing to have ceased to be an issue for sometime now, the state  ongress refrain for a rotational Chief Minister has returned to haunt the coalition government. What is more, the National Conference has been prompt to dismiss such a prospect, re-affirming that Omar Abdullah would be CM until 2014 when the coalition term ends. But this in no way means that the issue is settled, with a leader no less than state Congress president Saif-u-Din Soz repeating that the question of rotational CM will be decided by the Congress High Command.  From Soz on down to some veteran party leaders, the demand for a Congress CM remains strong and they use every available opportunity to press it home.  This has created a quaintly confusing situation in the state. On the one hand, as the lead article in this paper on Tuesday duly underlined, we have been given to understand that there has been a
formal agreement between Congress and NC whereby  Omar has to be CM for six years. On the other, local Congress leaders say there is no such agreement. The  national Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi  tried to clear air last month by making it clear that Omar was CM for the entire term. But he has found fewer takers in the state. This really brings up the question as to why is it that the state Congress here gives the impression that it doesn't know of an agreement between the coalition partners while the central leadership admits there is one. After all, when Omar announced the Congress support for a full time chief ministership after the assembly election  in 2008, none of the Congress leaders in J&K contradicted him. Instead, both the parties got busy forming the coalition. There is, however, nothing seriously wrong about the Congress demand. Its leaders are well within their rights to do so. But the problem is that the issue appears to have little reality beyond the occasional rhetorical statements of the local Congress leaders. And this in turn has affected the smooth functioning of the coalition by creating a false sense of discord. It is time that the coalition partners have a frank conversation on the issue and try to resolve it to the benefit of the governance.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:00:00 IST