RK News Service
Srinagar, June 6: Peoples Conference president and Handwara MLA Sajad Gani Lone on Saturday questioned PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s decision to chair a review meeting at AIIMS Awantipora despite not being an elected legislator, terming the move a “constitutional impropriety” and warning that it could set an undesirable precedent in Jammu and Kashmir.
Lone warned that Mehbooba Mufti’s act, carried out without holding any elected office, has set a dangerous precedent that could open the floodgates for other non-elected individuals to assume similar institutional authority in Jammu & Kashmir.
“The chairing of the review meeting at AIIMS by a non-MLA was an unconstitutional trespass and will remain an unconstitutional trespass,” Lone said.
Directing his remarks pointedly at Mehbooba Mufti, Lone posed a direct question: if she can chair a review meeting of a central institution today without being an MLA, what stops an RSS or BJP non-MLA functionary from doing the same — especially when they can point to 28 MLAs against the PDP’s four?
“What stops Dr. Farooq Abdullah Sahib, Azad Sahib, or Nirmal Singh Sahib from chairing similar meetings? The list can go on and on,” Lone said, underscoring that no such political entitlement exists anywhere else in India.
He further questioned whether the elected political space in J&K was “destined to be a fish market,” warning that by not admitting her error, Mehbooba Mufti had effectively opened the door for “all sorts of unelected and most likely politically undesirable species, especially in Kashmir, to chair similar meetings.”
Lone also turned his guns on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, holding him partly responsible for the situation. He argued that the CM’s pattern of setting his ministers against opposition MLAs and eroding their authority had created the conditions for this constitutional impropriety to occur in the first place.
