Jammu, Dec 13: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Friday said that the work on business rules to bring clarity in powers is going on and will be finalized by December end or January starting. He also said that the ‘one nation, one election’ bill, when introduced in the parliament, should not meet the fate of Article 370 bill.
According to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Omar said that there should be an open debate on the ‘one nation, one election’ bill and it shall not meet the fate of bills like reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir and scrapping Article 370, which happened in 2019.
The ‘one national one election’ bill is likely to be tabled during the current parliament session.
Replying to a query, Omar told the media persons that it has not been tabled in the parliament yet and the National Conference (NC) will sit and decide about it accordingly.
“It has not come before the Parliament yet. It will be debated in the House. The debate should be open; it should not be like what happened during creation of UT (J&K re re-organization act) and Article 370 in 2019, where token debate happened for 2 hours, and the government passed the bills. It should be discussed openly and then parliament will take a decision on it,” the Chief Minister said, adding, “As far as the National Conference is concerned, we will sit and form an opinion on it and tell our MPs how to vote.”
Furthermore, on his promise to restore Darbar Move practice and BJP criticism, Omar said, “The party (BJP) stopped this practice and did injustice with Jammu. BJP claims to be the well-wisher of Dogras and Jammu but they not only stopped Darbar Move practice but even changed the geographical map of Jammu.”
“BJP erased all the footprints and welfare measures instituted by Maharaja Hari Singh for J&K, which includes changing J&K’s map, ending Darbar Move, State Subject Law etc but we will restore all the lost things at the earliest”.
Asked about the clarity on powers in the Union Territory, the Chief Minister said, “The work on framing business rules is going on and we hope that by December end or January 2025 it will be finalized.”
Omar also took a dig at opposition parties and said that the people of J&K gave a mandate to the National Conference to run the government for five years. “We don’t have just five days or five weeks, but we have been elected for five years and the government will come up with its report card after five years of rule,” the Chief Minister said—(KNO)
