New dy CM calls Kathua a minor incident, stirs row

Srinagar: Eight Jammu and Kashmir legislators, including BJP’s former Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta and five of his partymen, were on Monday inducted into the Council of Ministers led by chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Soon after the swearing in, Mr Gupta, who will be the new deputy chief minister, courted controversy by trivialising Kathua gangrape by saying, “Kathua mamla ek choti si baat hai. Usko itni tuul deni nahi chahiye (The Kathua incident was a small thing. It shouldn’t have been given all this hype)”.

The induction of ministers — six from the BJP and two from the PDP —  comes after BJP ministers Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga resigned from the Cabinet earlier this month after they were criticised for supporting a rally backing the accused in  the rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua.

Both the alliance partners — PDP and BJP —sought to downplay that the Kathua incident had anything to do with Monday’s Cabinet reshuffle, especially after reporters started questioning the decision of including in the Cabinet Kathua MLA Rajiv Jasrotia, who was part of the rally, in support of the accused.

The ministers who took oath on Monday included five new faces from the BJP.

These include Sat Paul Sharma (state BJP chief New dy CM calls Kathua a minor incident, stirs row and Jammu West MLA), Mr Jasrotia , Dr Devender Manyal (Samba MLA) and Shakti Raj Parihar (Doda MLA). While Mr Parihar was inducted as a minister of state, the four others are Cabinet ministers.  The BJP also upgraded minister of state for transport Sunil Kumar Sharma to Cabinet rank.

The BJP dropped health and medical education minister Bali Bhagat and MoS education and tourism Priya Sethi.

Party sources said Dr Nirmal Singh, who had resigned as deputy CM on Sunday, is likely to be made the new Speaker.

Though the new BJP ministers owe their induction into the Cabinet to the upheaval caused by the Kathua incident, there was lack of sensitivity in their tone over the murder-cum-gangrape. Mr Gupta sparked a controversy by questioning the hype around the incident.

While trivialising the Kathua incident, Mr Gupta, however, said that the victim should get justice. “We should ensure that incidents like this should not be repeated again. We need to get the girl justice. These are some of the biggest challenges before the government today,” he said.

Former chief minister and National Conference working chief Omar Abdullah tweeted, “What justice can one expect from @MehboobaMufti when her Deputy CM calls the rape & murder of an 8 year old a minor incident that the media shouldn't focus on.”

The Congress said that Mr Gupta's describing the horrific and shameful gangrape-murder as a "small incident" is a deliberate attempt on the part of the BJP and its leadership to justify it and thwart delivery of justice. A party spokesman said the chief minister should make her stand clear on her deputy's assertion.

Later on Monday, however, Mr Gupta claimed his remarks were “misconstrued”, and blamed the media for reporting his statements in the “wrong way”. The Peoples’ Democratic Party also inducted two of its known faces, Mohammad Khalil Bandh and Mohammad Ashraf Mir, MLAs from Pulwama and Sonwar (Srinagar). The duo had served as ministers in the PDP-BJP combine earlier when PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed was chief minister. The PDP has dropped Abdul Haq Khan, rural development and law minister, to keep its strength at 14 as permitted under the agreement between the two parties in 2015. The state can have a maximum of 25 ministers, including the CM, out of which 14 portfolios are with the PDP and the remaining 11 with the BJP. The PDP had only one vacancy following the unceremonious ouster of finance minister Haseeb Drabu in March this year.

The BJP’s quota had dropped to nine after two of its ministers, Choudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, were asked to resign amid controversy over their rallying behind the accused in the alleged gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old Bakarwal girl in Kathua district. With the resignation of three more ministers, including deputy CM Nirmal Singh, on Sunday, its strength in the ministry had come down to six.

J&K governor N.N. Vohra administered the oath to the new ministers. The swearing-in ceremony, where chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and PMO minister of state Jitendra Singh were also present, was held at the convention centre instead of Raj Bhavan in Jammu as the state government has already shifted its base to Srinagar, the summer capital, as part of the bi-annual “darbar move”, under which the government works six months each in the twin capitals. The secretariat, the seat of the J&K government, and Raj Bhavan had closed in Jammu on Friday and will reopen along with other offices in Srinagar on May 7. Days after forest minister Choudhary Lal Singh and industry minister Chander Prakash Ganga quit amid criticism over their publicly supporting the accused in the Kathua gangrape-murder, all nine BJP ministers in the coalition government gave their resignations to the state unit chief to facilitate the major reshuffle.

The induction of Kathua MLA Rajiv Jasrotia as a minister has come in for criticism from Opposition leaders as well as in the social media. Former CM Omar Abdullah said Mehbooba Mufi appeared to be confused over her stand on the Kathua incident as one of the participants in the "pro-rapists" rally was now a minister in her Cabinet.