Omar Abdullah Calls for Urgent Shift Towards Full Statehood in Jammu and Kashmir

Terming the current administrative structure in Jammu and Kashmir the "worst form of government", Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has called for an urgent shift toward full statehood while acknowledging that significant progress has been made in narrowing differences with the Centre over the transaction of business rules. The chief minister also hit out at vested interests making efforts to create a political wedge between Jammu and Srinagar, saying "they have failed and they will continue to fail", and highlighted the restoration of the traditional biannual shift of the capital known as 'Darbar Move' as a vital bridge in narrowing the emotional divide between the two regions. Speaking with PTI, Abdullah argued that the logic behind treating a territory with 90 elected legislators on par with smaller regions like Puducherry, which has only 30, remains incomprehensible, and reiterated his earlier stand that a dual power system where two power structures exist is a "recipe for disaster". "Can you not see the difference between a tiny one with 30 MLAs and one with 90 MLAs? And you still believe that this current system is beneficial to Jammu and Kashmir after everything that happened last year?" the chief minister asked while referring to the Pahalgham tragedy, pointing out that keeping elected representatives out of the law and order situation was doing no good. He specifically noted that the size and scale of Jammu and Kashmir demand a governance model where the elected representatives are fully responsible for administration. "I continue to maintain that view. I continue to believe that a system of Union territory with an assembly is by far the worst form of government that you can come up with," Abdullah told PTI here recently.