PDP-BJP govt shredding democracy to pieces: Omar

Srinagar, Jul 1: A delegation of National Conference (NC), led by Omar Abdullah, today called on Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra and submitted two memorandums, accusing the ruling PDP-BJP coalition of "shredding democracy to pieces".

"Through these memorandums, we submitted our apprehensions about the way democracy was shredded to pieces in the Legislative Assembly yesterday," Omar told reporters outside Raj Bhavan here.

The former Chief Minister said the first memorandum was on the "sabotage" of a bill to amend the Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Land Act and the Transfer of Property Act, which was referred to a Select Committee after Revenue Minister Basharat Bukhari moved a motion.

"We saw in the Assembly yesterday that for the first time, a government bill which was brought by a minister, was recommended to be sent to a Select Committee by the same minister, despite the majority of the members being in favour of the bill," he said. NC, Congress, PDP and Independent MLAs were in favour of the bill's passage and there was no need to send it to a Select Committee, he said.

"But...to sabotage the bill, it was sent to a Select Committee on the basis of a voice vote," Omar said. "We feel, this way, the credibility of the institutions, especially Assembly, is lost and this is an old habit of PDP. They also played with the Transfer of Property Act in their last government, so it is happening for the second time," he said.

The NC working president said another memorandum, submitted by the party to the Governor, was about the legislation to amend the Panchayati Raj Act.

"They have passed a legislation in the assembly yesterday and sent it to the Upper House for amending the Panchayati Raj Act, wherein they are proposing to elect Sarpanches indirectly via panches rather than directly and we submitted our apprehensions on that as well to the Governor," Omar said.

"Then the Governor discussed the current security situation with us and we shared our thoughts on that with him," Omar said.

PTI