Chief Secretary triggers row, politicians remind him of Service rules

SRINAGAR — The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam has kicked up a row by accusing mainstream politicians for corruption and misgovernance, which had triggered sharp reactions from the political parties who reminded the CS of his service rules.

“Jammu and Kashmir was a broken State and there was no system in place due to years of miss-governance, corruption and unbelievable levels of fraud committed by leaders of mainstream parties and separatist organisations. Not a single soul cried over the detention of political and separatist leaders in August last year,” B. V. R. Subrahmanyam said this while speaking with a group of visiting journalists on Friday here.

Reacting to the allegations, Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) senior leader and former minister Ghulam Hassan Mir said that the comments passed by the Chief Secretary tantamount to breach of service rules and are legally and ethically unwarranted.

He said that an officer of the rank of Chief Secretary in J&K seems to have forgotten about service conduct rules which warrant serving officers not to talk about issues pertaining to politics and instead should work for strengthening the institutions of governance on the ground.

Jammu and Kashmir National Conference rejected the allegations of Chief Secretary as baseless, politically motivated and intended to evade the genuine concerns of the public on the failures of Jammu and Kashmir administration on every conceivable matrix.

In a statement, Party’s spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that it can’t be a coincidence that BJP and its leadership has been parroting the same line of thought over the past one year.

“The language used by CS while hurling allegations against mainstream political parties is exactly similar to what BJP is saying. If he is so keen to be a politician, I would suggest that he quit his job and join politics. With the kind of comments he has made on the J&K’s situation post August 05, the veiled political affiliations of J&K’s top bureaucrats have finally come forth before people.” he said.

CPI (M) said the statement of Chief Secretary blaming political parties for misgovernance and corruption in Jammu and Kashmir is highly unacceptable.

“We want to ask him (CS) what his administration has done to eradicate corruption in J&K for the last more than two years when there is no elected government in the region.”

“If frauds have been committed by some persons who have remained in authority, what stops the administration to make those public and book the offenders? We had been demanding transparency in the functioning of each branch of the administration including J&K Bank for a long time and bringing it under the ambit of legislature and Right to Information Act (RTI). Time and again, we demanded it on the floor of the Assembly as well.”

People’s Conference general secretary and former minister Imran Ansari said that chief secretary should not dabble in politics.

“So MR CS. Now u have been here for two years. And u have been the boss. Wonder how many people will cry if u r arrested. Hope u focus on ur job rather than dabbling in politics. Please for god’s sake do your job what you are best at Decide new date for meeting) @AmitShah @PMOIndia,” Ansari said in his tweet.

Senior politician Muzaffar Shah said that Subramaniyam is making sweeping statements like BJP. Shah said that JK CS is in fact a BJP man who is habitual of talking in air without knowing the ground reality.