Omar Abdullah’s last warning to PM Narendra Modi

Administrative rejig

In a major administrative rejig, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, on April 1, 2025, ordered the transfer and posting of 48 Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) officers, including 14 Additional Deputy Commissioners and 26 Sub-Divisional Magistrates. Some of those transferred included Additional Deputy Commissioners in Pulwama, Kupwara, Anantnag, Baramulla, Srinagar, Ganderbal, and Handwara (Kashmir Division), and Kathua, Basohli, Sunderbani, Nowshera, Rajouri, Bhaderwah, and Doda (Jammu Division).

The order of transfers and postings issued by the General Administration Department (GAD) came at a time when the Omar Abdullah-led government was waiting for a nod from the Union Home Ministry for the Business Rules it had framed in March and sent to the Lieutenant Governor for approval. In the run up to the much-awaited Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir last year, the Ministry of Home Affairs had in July 2024 amended the “Transaction of Business Rules”, enhancing the powers of the Lieutenant Governor in matters relating to Police, Public Order, All-India Services such as the IAS and IPS, and the granting of prosecution sanctions.

“Until we receive statehood, it is necessary to frame Business Rules for clarity. It took some time, but yesterday (March 5, 2025) at 8 pm, we convened a cabinet meeting and finalized the Business Rules. They were approved by the cabinet,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said while replying to the Motion of Thanks to the Lieutenant Governor’s Address in the Assembly on March 6. “We hope they will be approved,” he had also said. Earlier, he had openly criticized what he called the “dual governance model” in the Union Territory, where he had to share power with the Lieutenant Governor, as a “recipe for disaster”.[1]]

Letter of anger

Rattled by the Lieutenant Governor’s order, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah shot off letters to Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, Lieutenant Governor, and Home Minister Amit Shah. A report in this regard in the The Indian Express (April 4) read like this: “In the first serious escalation between the Jammu and Kashmir Government and the Raj Bhawan, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has shot off letters to Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, and Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, over the transfer of 48 officials of the JKAS on April 1…The government has termed the transfers as ‘illegal’ and not approved by the ‘competent authority’, which is the Chief Minister’s Office. The transfers, which are seen as an attempt to take control of the bureaucracy, are Raj Bhawan’s ‘encroachment’ upon the elected government led by the National Conference, says the Chief Minister’s missive…Since the transfers pertain to several revenue officials of the Union Territory, they also fall foul of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which says such transfers need to be approved by the Council of Ministers too. This is the second time mass transfers have taken place since Jammu and Kashmir got its first elected government post the scrapping of its special status – this was two months after Omar took over in October 2024. Despite Omar’s directive to the Chief Secretary to halt the transfers of 20 JKAS officials, and ensure that no official was moved from their current posting, the transfers had taken effect…[2]

The National Conference-led government had then, according to a report in a leading national English language daily, The Hindu, said that “the transfers (of these 20 officers plus the unwillingness of the Raj Bhawan to endorse Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s decision that the then Advocate General D C Raina would continue to discharge his duties and represent Jammu and Kashmir in courts) were a bid by the Raj Bhawan to ‘curtail the powers’ of the elected government.”[3]

Part of well well-thought-out strategy

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah not just opposed the 48 transfers and postings, through his letter of anger and frustration to the Home Minister, Lieutenant Governor, and Chief Secretary. He and his allies, including legislators of the National Conference, the Congress, and independents, also held an “emergency meeting” at the official residence of Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary on April 4 to discuss the whole issue of transfers and postings and devise a further course of action. Farooq Abdullah was also present in the meeting, which was presided over by the outraged Omar Abdullah.

The selection of the Deputy Chief Minister’s official residence at Srinagar as the venue of the meeting was obviously part of a well-thought-out strategy; it was not without a political motive. He didn’t hold any position in the party (National Conference), and he also hailed from Jammu province. He had resigned from the BJP and joined the National Conference just before the assembly elections. Earlier, he was with Mehbooba Mufti’s party. He was the same person who had moved “Special Status Resolution” in the assembly on November 6, 2024.

Clearly, the objective of Omar Abdullah and his coterie was to tell the Narendra Modi government that the Hindus of Jammu, like the Kashmiri Muslims, didn’t appreciate the system of governance as handed down by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act and that the people of the Union Territory wanted the Chief Minister and his Council of Ministers to exercise powers of a full-fledged state (so that they could subvert the polity from within with ease as before.) A report in The Indian Express on November 7, 2024, on why the National Conference charged Surinder Choudhary with the responsibility of moving special status resolution in the Assembly, among other things, read like this: “The National Conference’s Jammu face introduces the resolution that seems modulated for Delhi’s ears…”

Last warning to the Prime Minister

After the meeting, the National Conference spokesperson and MLA, Tanvir Sadiq, and Congress leader and MLA and Congress Chief Whip in the assembly, Nizam-u-Din Bhat, addressed a press conference. Briefing media persons, Tanvir Sadiq, inter alia, said: “Two important resolutions were passed. The Waqf Board Bill, passed in Parliament, was strongly opposed. We said this bill is against the minority of this country…The second resolution said that the mandate given by the people in the October 2024 assembly polls should be respected. People in large numbers enthusiastically took part in the assembly elections. The top leadership of the country praised them for that. If somebody rejects that mandate or undermines it, then he is disrespecting that mandate. We repeatedly say that our mandate has to be respected at every level. Our coordination with Delhi or the LG administration is based on our efforts to ensure that the problems of the people are solved. Our coordination, or our silence, should not be taken as our weakness. We should not be pushed to the wall. This is our appeal, and we are making this appeal for the last time.”

Nizam-u-Din Bhat told media persons that the legislators’ meeting discussed threadbare the sensitive issues obtaining in Jammu and Kashmir. “As he (Tanvir Sadiq) said, resolutions were passed unanimously…We stand behind the Chief Minister. And if there is anything untoward to which we have taken exception, the alliance will take a call on the floor of the assembly. Assembly is the only forum after Parliament where you have to represent people’s aspirations, respect their dignity and honour, and give the popular government full space to function. We will take a call in the assembly,” he said.[4]

A day before, the Congress had also criticized the Lieutenant Governor’s decision to order the transfer of middle and lower-rung officers in the Union Territory, saying “the latter should have awaited the approval of Business Rules before announcing his decision.” “It would have been advisable for the Lieutenant Governor to wait a while, as the Business Rules are pending approval. The Lieutenant Governor should have been more patient,” Gulam Ahmed Mir, national general secretary of the Congress and MLA, had said.

Gulam Ahmed Mir, who also served as the leader of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, further said that the government had already proposed the Business Rules and forwarded them to New Delhi for approval. “Taking such a step was not advisable,” the Congress leader said. “The previous rules stipulated that local JKAS officers will be handled by the Chief Minister, while senior officers (IAS) will be transferred by the Lieutenant Governor…The Lieutenant Governor’s action, knowing that the Business Rules proposal is pending approval in Delhi, sent a wrong message about the state of affairs within the Jammu and Kashmir administration.

It has sent a wrong message that everything is not well (within the administration). The Lieutenant Governor knew it well that the proposal for Business Rules was under consideration, yet he took this step,” Gulam Ahmed Mir, in addition, said.[5]

Nizam-u-Din Bhat again addressed a press conference on April 5 and appealed to Home Minister Amit Shah not to bypass the elected government in Jammu and Kashmir and take it on board for any initiative or action in the Union Territory. “We request him (Amit Shah) that a popular government is in place. The government has secured a massive mandate, which is a matter of pride for democracy and the country. We request that nothing should be done by bypassing the state government, even if it is advisory in nature…The Centre, or the Raj Bhawan, can exercise powers that are within their rights, but the elected government needs to be taken on board. What they can do according to the law, let them do that. Whatever is their right, they do not need any advice on that, but if there is an initiative in the state, or an action or review, or information input, the state government has to be taken on board…That is a constitutional command, a constitutional prerogative, and also ethically, morally, and politically reasonable and obligatory,” he, among other things, said.[6]

Opportunity for PDP to prick NC

For the opposition parties in Kashmir, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party, it was an opportunity to prick and attack the National Conference and tell its constituency that the Omar Abdullah-led government had let down the people of Kashmir and compromised its mandate for the sake of the loaves and fishes of office. They termed the development as “theatrics” by the National Conference, which “surrendered its huge mandate for the crumbs of power.”

Senior Peoples Democratic Party leader and former bureaucrat and minister, Naeem Akhtar, said that the National Conference had “no leeway to do anything except accepting every new situation after the Abdullah government assumed office in October last year.” “They did so [by forming the government] as the first act of surrender after receiving a huge and unprecedented victory. For once, their voters had taken a well-considered decision to back them as an act of defiance and resistance. Now it is too late even for course correction,” he also said while taking on the Omar Abdullah Government.[7]

The Peoples Democratic Party MLA, Waheed Para, also took the plunge. Taunting and criticising the National Conference, he said that the party was focusing on powers to transfer officers instead of resisting the changes enforced post-August 2019. “A party in Jammu and Kashmir that once appointed its own Sadar-e-Riyasat (Head of State) and Prime Minister is now fighting over Tehsildar appointments, not rights. Goalposts aren’t just shifting, they’ve hit rock bottom. Fifty MLAs unite, not for resisting August 5, but for JKAS transfers. Focus on symptoms only, not on August 5?” Para wrote on a microblogging site X on April 4.

“You started by surrendering and normalising August 5, expecting them to facilitate you because you facilitated them. If only you had taken a stand, appointed your own Advocate General, nominated five MLAs, and never compromised on (Article) 370 resolution (for restoration of statehood), transfers would have been on your platter…You refused to stand for July 13 (the {so-called} Martyrs’ Day holiday, which was scrapped in 2019), and the Waqf Bill was just empty rhetoric. Now, the same cabinet that justified the same bureaucrats in a month-long assembly session is complaining about them?” he further said.[8]

BJP’s support to the Raj Bhawan

As expected, the BJP defended all 48 transfers. In fact, Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Sunil Sharma, on April 4 criticised the National Conference government for questioning the Raj Bhawan’s move and said that these transfers were made as per the rules. “He (Lieutenant Governor) has acted within his jurisdiction. These transfers are routine and in accordance with the law,” he said. He further accused the National Conference of treating Jammu and Kashmir as its “personal property” for decades and said that “the ruling party has failed to acknowledge that that ‘era is over’ and Jammu and Kashmir is now a Union Territory, like Puducherry and Delhi”, and governed accordingly.

But more than that, he questioned the National Conference’s very intention behind demanding statehood for Jammu and Kashmir. “Those who are demanding statehood are doing so to gain control over transfers and industries. The people should understand whether this demand is for the welfare of the state, or for personal power and influence,” he said.[9]

On the other hand, the BJP national general secretary and the party’s in-charge for Jammu and Kashmir, Tarun Chugh, accused Omar Abdullah of “deliberately creating a situation of confrontation with the office of the Lieutenant Governor to divert public attention from his failure to fulfil election promises.”

“Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was constitutionally within his administrative rights to transfer JKAS officials…The Union Home Ministry will address the differences between the Lieutenant Governor and the Chief Minister. However, the Abdullah government must focus on fulfilling the promises made to the youth, women, and the unemployed,” Tarun Chugh said in a statement from New Delhi.

Not just this, he further accused Omar Abdullah of following “the same confrontational path as (former Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal (earlier) in Delhi by attempting to spread a misleading narrative.” “It will serve no purpose. Abdullah must present his performance report, as the people of Jammu and Kashmir are waiting for him to deliver on his promises,” he said.[10]

HM with LG

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was in Delhi on April 4, when Omar Abdullah chaired the emergency meeting held at the residence of Surinder Choudhary, and the National Conference issued a last warning to the Narendra Modi Government. When asked at an event organised by Network18 in Delhi if what the National Conference and the Congress said about the 48 transfers was correct or not, Manoj Sinha said in unambiguous terms that his actions were within the constitutional framework as laid down by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act.

“I am well within my domain and I will never do anything by stepping out of it,” he said, adding, “I know my boundaries and I will never breach those boundaries.”[11]

“I want to make it absolutely clear — the Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act in 2019, and I am saying with responsibility that I have acted entirely within the domain defined by that Act…I know my jurisdiction, and I will never violate it…He would not do anything beyond the scope of the powers granted to him,” he also said while defending his April 1 action.[12]

More importantly, Home Minister Amit Shah didn’t find fault with the Raj Bhawan, or with the 48 transfers and postings. “As far as the issues of the administration are concerned, everything is being done as per the rules,” he said on April 7. He made this statement in Jammu itself. He was on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir to take stock of the prevailing situation and interact with the local BJP leadership. During his interaction with the BJP leadership, including all 28 MLAs, he had asked them to play an effective role both inside and outside the assembly.[13]

Both the Lieutenant Governor and the Home Minister were right when they said what they said on the issue of the powers of the former. This could be seen from Section 55 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act. It reads: (1) The Lieutenant Governor shall make rules on the advice of the Council of Ministers — (a) for the allocation of business to the ministers; and (b) for the more convenient transaction of business with the ministers, including the procedure to be adopted in case of a difference of opinion between the Lieutenant Governor and the Council of Ministers or a Minister. (2) Save as otherwise provided in this Act, all executive actions of the Lieutenant Governor, whether taken on the advice of his ministers or otherwise, shall be expressed to be taken in the name of the Lieutenant Governor. (3) Orders and other instruments made and executed in the name of the Lieutenant Governor shall be authenticated in such manner as may be specified in rules to be made by the Lieutenant Governor on the advice of Council of Ministers, and the validity of an order or instrument which is so authenticated shall not be called in question on the ground that it is not an order or instrument made or executed by the Lieutenant Governor.”[14]

NC reaction

The assertion of the Lieutenant Governor that he did not go beyond the confines of the 2019 Reorganisation Act evoked a very strong reaction from the National Conference. This time, Omar Abdullah did not field the party spokesperson, Tanvir Sadiq, to administer a threat to the Narendra Modi government. This time, he fielded his Political Advisor, Nasir Aslam Wani. Cautioning the Centre on April 5, he, among other things, said: “We also know our jurisdiction…The ruling alliance had already made its position clear during a meeting held on Friday (April 4). The ruling alliance cautioned the Centre against undermining the authority of the democratically elected government. Our stand remains the same. Let’s see what happens in the future.”[15]

Conclusion

It would not be out of place to conclude by quoting verbatim the relevant portion from what a keen Kashmir-watcher, KN Pandita, wrote in his essay “Administrative transfers and the dynamics of power in J&K” (Daily Excelsior, April 10.) K N Pandita, himself a Kashmiri living in Jammu as a refugee in his own motherland since his migration from Srinagar in January 1990 and former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University, wrote: “Firstly, it (what Tanvir Sadiq and Nizam-u-Din Bhat said) was an indirect message to New Delhi that the National Conference would not hesitate to launch a mass movement in Kashmir to demand doing away with the Union Territory status and reviving the full-fledged Jammu and Kashmir State. In other words, curtailment of the powers of the elected government is not acceptable to the Kashmir Valley political leadership. If the case is so, and definitely, the National Conference knew about truncated powers of an elected government coming to power under the Union Territory proviso, why did it choose to take part in the election, and why did it ask the Lieutenant Governor to administer the oath of office? Assembling the rank and file of the party unilaterally and passing resolutions in a closed-door room of a residential house is nothing more than playing a game of intimidation.

Along with passing a resolution warning the Lieutenant Governor and the NDA government of so-called curtailment of powers or trespassing the limits of authority, the group also passed a resolution condemning the Waqf reform bill passed by both houses of the Indian parliament. One fails to see any commonality between the two resolutions, so the purpose remains suspect…In this case, a cogent point intentionally underplayed is the questionable conduct of the 48 bureaucrats from the state cadre whose transfer order has been issued by the Lieutenant Governor’s office. It should be noted that a segment of the Kashmir bureaucracy has a record of pro-separatist and pro-jihadist tendencies. Elements of the Kashmir Valley leadership have notoriously been sympathetic to separatists and subversives. Agencies maintain an updated record of their clandestine activities. Some government officials facilitating separatist activities have been thrown out of government service. In the process, some senior officers in the rank of state cadre suspected of abusing service rules have been transferred to reduce their capability of subversion. The decision of the Lieutenant Governor to effect the mass transfer of JKAS officers must be seen as an attempt to help the elected government run an efficient, prompt, and pro-people administration. He is bound by the constitution and the law to take measures meant to curb anti-national and anti-social activities.”

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

References:

[1] 48 JKAS Officers Transferred On LG’s Direction In Jammu And Kashmir – Apr 3, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[2] EXCLUSIVE: First face-off between Omar govt, LG: CM writes to Centre on transfers of officials – Apr 4, 2025, The Indian Express

[3] Friction between J&K Lieutenant-Governor and CM Omar Abdullah growing – Dec 6, 2024, The Hindu

[4] NC, allies demand room to govern – Apr 5, 2025, Greater Kashmir

[5] Congress Criticises J-K LG’s Decision To Transfer 48 JKAS Officers – Apr 3, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[6] Nothing Should Be Done By ‘Bypassing’ J&K Govt: Cong To Amit Shah – Apr 5, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[7] NC Calls Alliance Meet After LG Orders Admin Reshuffle – Apr 3, 2025, The Wire

[8] NC Focused On Power To Transfer Officers Instead Of Statehood Restoration, Says Waheed Para – Apr 4, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[9] BJP Defends J-K LG’s Move To Transfer 48 Officers, Calls It Routine – Apr 4, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[10] Omar Abdullah deliberately creating situation of confrontation with LG to divert attention: Tarun Chugh – Apr 5, 2025, Greater Kashmir

[11] ‘I know my boundaries’: L-G Manoj Sinha on J&K officials’ transfer; Omar Abdullah’s party asks Centre to respect mandate – Apr 4, 2025, Indian Express

[12] LG Sinha Denies Overreach, Cites Reorganisation Act Amid Row With Elected Govt – Apr 4, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[13] Security situation will be normal in Jammu soon: Shah – Apr 7, 2025, Daily Excelsior

[14] Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 [Act No. 34 of 2019] – Faolex

[15] CM’s Advisor Counters LG: Says ‘We Know Our Jurisdiction Too’ – Apr 5, 2025, Daily Excelsior

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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