Before rejig, Dy CM in Delhi for talks

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 22

Amid reports of a ministerial reshuffle from the BJP quota, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh reached Delhi on Sunday afternoon for a crucial meeting scheduled to be held on Monday evening to finalise the rejig.

Other leaders of the core group — state president Sat Sharma, general secretary Ashok Koul and Lok Sabha member Jugal Kishore Sharma — will reach Delhi on Monday afternoon.

“The Deputy Chief Minister, who reached Delhi this afternoon, will have an interaction with the party high command to brief the central leadership about the prevailing situation in the state,” a source said and added that before Monday’s meeting, the Deputy Chief Minister would meet some senior leaders individually.

Sources said finalising the names for the ministerial reshuffle was on the agenda for Monday’s meeting but other contentious issues related to J&K would also be discussed as leaders of some offshoots of the Sangh Parivar had discussed some “controversial” decisions taken by the coalition regime with the party’s central leadership.

BJP president Amit Shah, party’s general secretary in charge of J&K Ram Madhav, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh and Avinash Rai Khanna are likely to meet the core group of the J&K BJP to finalise the names of party leaders, who would be included and those who would be dropped from the council of ministers.

After two Cabinet ministers of the party were forced to resign for supporting the demand of a CBI inquiry in the Rasana murder and rape case, the BJP is left with eight ministers, five in Cabinet and three Ministers of State. Sajjad Gani Lone, who holds the charge of the Social Welfare Department, is also a minister from the BJP quota. Highly placed sources said the state unit has prepared a tentative list of legislators to be inducted in the council of ministers but the final decision would be taken by the high command after Monday’s meeting.

“The core group has suggested the induction of some new faces by dropping a couple of incumbent ministers to give representation to areas which are not properly represented in the council of ministers,” a source said, adding, “The high command has asked the state leadership to prepare a tentative list in this regard.” The date of ministerial reshuffle would be finalised only after Monday’s meeting.

All BJP ministers had submitted their resignations to party president Sat Sharma on April 13. Resignations of only two ministers, Choudhary Lal Singh and Chander Parkash Ganga, were forwarded to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti the very next day.