Political Corruption: Major J&K political parties hit at CS
Allegations baseless, politically motivated: NC; he has come here with a colonial mindset: PDP; he is a victim of delusions of grandeur: PC; People believe administration has become more corrupt after Aug 05: CPI(M); he has forgotten service conduct rules: JKAP
Srinagar: Almost all major political parties including Nation Conference, Peoples Democratic Party, Peoples Conference, CPI(M) and Apni Party have taken serious note of the remarks made by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary BVR Subhramanyam regarding “political corruption” in J&K.
NC on Saturday rejected the allegations of Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam as baseless, politically motivated and intended to evade the genuine concerns of the public on the failures of J&K administration on every conceivable matrix.
In a statement, a party’s spokesperson said that it can’t be a coincidence that BJP and bureaucracy have 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,” NC spokesperson said.
He said that such sordid allegations from a civil servant put a big question mark on his professionalism, work culture and impartiality.
“It is quite alarming where a serving civil servant is overtly spewing venom against the entire mainstream political spectrum to hide the abject failures of the administration under him since 20 June 2018,” he added.
“The statement of JK CS also reveals his own hyper-partisan disposition and the proclivity of the GoI to maintain the status quo of confusion, chaos, misgovernance and fear in J&K,” he said.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lashed out at the Chief Secretary, terming his recent remarks uncalled for and utterly flagitious.
In a statement issued here, PDP spokesperson said that the Chief Secretary has come here with a “colonial mindset” and acts as “chief executioner of RSS” in Kashmir. He said that it was ironical that he is finding fault with the entire population of Jammu and Kashmir while running the “most-corrupt administration that the state has ever witnessed”.
According to the PDP spokesperson, the Chief Secretary is heading a cabal of officers “who are affiliated with RSS and are enforcing their agenda in Kashmir”.
“CS should explain what has happened to the Chenab valley power corporation scams and why were those first approved, later canceled? Who were the officers involved?” said the spokesperson.
Strongly castigating “crude and uncouth” remarks of CS, PDP spokesperson added that through such utterances on issues beyond his remit the said public servant is “merely hiding his incompetence and shrugging of accountability for his mandated work.”
“Why are our leaders still incarcerated? Why and how are our mineral resources looted? Why has administration miserably failed in its response to COVID 19? Where is the promised development? Why has no action been taken on the reports of an unprecedented level of corruption prevalent in the system and who is benefitting from the Ponzi scheme?” spokesperson questioned.
Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference too has lashed out at the Chief Secretary and termed his utterances as “delusions of grandeur”.
In a statement, a party spokesperson said that the Chief Secretary needs to speak within his pay and grade.
“Kashmir has this problem where people get delusions of grandeur. It seems like the Chief Secretary is the latest victim of the same set of delusions. We extend our sympathy and hope he comes out of it. We also hope that Delhi comes out of its delusions. If the utterances of the Chief Secretary are any indicators of what he thinks of himself and this is what he briefs his bosses in Delhi, then Delhi doesn’t need enemies in Kashmir. Talk of inventing a lie and then believing in it; he takes the cake,” he said.
PC spokesperson said that last one year has been the tyranny of the unelected. “An IAS officer whose only achievement in life is that he cracked an exam will never know the struggle of fighting and winning elections. Sitting in ivory towers lecturing politicians is easy, let these officers come on the streets to display their public support now that they have aspirations of replacing the elected representatives,” he said.
He added that the “recurring theme of the administration is to project Kashmiris as corrupt and tarnish our identity.”
“India as a country ranks 80 out of 180 in corruption index. The GDP of India is 3000 billion dollars. The GDP of J&K should be in the range of about 20 billion dollars. If we go by the utterances of the Chief Secretary – this 20-billion-dollar economy has the capacity to tarnish and make corrupt a 3000-billion-dollar economy. The size of the 2G scam is multiple times more than our annual budget. And the Chief Secretary has temerity to sermonize us about absence of structures and scams. He needs to get his arithmetic right. And if he so wishes, we can send him the corruption index of all states of India. Chhattisgarh, incidentally his cadre state, scores much higher than J&K,” PC spokesperson said.
CPI(M) described the CS’s statement as un-acceptable.
“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,” a statement issued by CPI(M) said.
Leveling baseless allegations against politicians without any credible evidence is fraught with serious consequences, said the statement.
“Bureaucrats come and go and it is not the mandate of a CS to level baseless allegations against elected representatives.
“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,” said the statement.
It said that there is a wide perception among common people in J&K that the administration has become more corrupt after the abrogation of Article 370 and BJP government’s claim to give Kashmir corruption-free administration and governance was simply rhetoric and has proved mere hoax.
Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) senior leader and former minister Ghulam Hassan Mir on Saturday censured the political remarks made by the Chief Secretary, saying that the comments passed by the Chief Secretary tantamount to breach of service rules and are legally and ethically unwarranted.
“All the government employees including bureaucrats are supposed to remain apolitical and give people a fair deal of governance which is entirely lacking in J&K,” Mir said.
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 work for strengthening the institutions of governance on the ground.
