A cabinet expansion is usually a way to consolidate. It lets a chief minister steady the ship, find fresh talent and tighten his grip. But when it is carried out amid a governance crisis, a contest between two power centres and a crowd of restless ambitions, the exercise can backfire unless handled with great care.
No reshuffle pleases everyone; there are always more aspirants than chairs. What separates a smooth reshuffle from a damaging one is whether the leadership has gauged the depth of resentment beforehand and prepared a plan to contain it.On that test, the long-awaited reshuffle of the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference (NC) government in Jammu and Kashmir falls short.
It suggests either over-confidence or, more worryingly, a weakening hold over the party’s own legislators. Dissent surfaced within moments of the swearing-in ceremony. With a long queue of claimants for a handful of berths in a two-year-old government, some grumbling was inevitable. Yet the scale of the backlash appears to have surprised even NC patriarch Dr Farooq Abdullah.
Instead of buying breathing space, the exercise has handed father and son fresh headaches. They already operate within a dual governance arrangement, with the Centre, through the Lieutenant Governor, watching every move.
The BJP’s 29-member legislature party in the 90-member House has been loudly backing the Centre-LG line while eyeing the chief minister’s chair. The NC’s turmoil also distracts from the BJP’s own failure to deliver for Jammu.“Opening a Pandora’s box” aptly describes the fallout from the October 27, 2026, expansion, which Mr Omar Abdullah said was done “with the full consultation of party president Dr Farooq Abdullah”.
The induction of Mr Ali Mohammed Sagar, Ms Shameem Firdous, Mir Saifullah and Mr Altaf Wani (Kaloo) took the council to its statutory ceiling of nine but also brought fresh trouble.One question stands out: why did Mr Sagar become so indispensable to the Abdullahs that they were willing to unsettle the party for him?The timing makes matters worse still.
The Abdullahs were already facing a rebellion of sorts led by Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the young and ambitious Lok Sabha MP from Srinagar. Mr Mehdi has repeatedly taken on the leadership in public, at times in ways that seemed agenda-driven, and announced he would quit the party and his seat on November 3, 2026, after Dr Abdullah said he was free to resign and leave. With that deadline so close, would it not have been wiser to first assess the impact of his exit?
Was it, again, over-confidence at the top?What followed was unusual for the NC. Overlooked seniors aired their anger openly, breaking with party tradition. From founder Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah through Dr Farooq Abdullah’s long innings, public dissent was rare; the revolts of Mirza Afzal Beg and later Mr G M Shah made little lasting impact.
Mr Omar Abdullah, who has yet to acquire the stature of his grandfather or father and has faced whispering campaigns, had never confronted anything quite like this.
Three-time MLA Mr Abdul Majeed Bhat (Larmi) broke down before reporters, though he insisted he would stay in the party. Most striking of all was six-time MLA Mr Mubarak Gul, who complained of being passed over repeatedly despite witnessing some 30 such swearing-in ceremonies.
His supporters staged noisy protests outside the party headquarters in Srinagar. The gravity of the moment was evident when Dr Abdullah hastily offered him the post of party general secretary.
Whether Mr Gul will be placated is unclear; for a politician in the final stretch of his career, an organisational post is a poor substitute for a ministerial berth.Mr Sagar’s induction is likely the real source of Mr Gul’s grievance. The veteran is not in good health and struggled visibly to read his oath.
Adding to the sting, Mr Sagar’s son is an MLA from a neighbouring constituency, while Mr Gul could not secure a ticket for his son in the 2024 assembly elections.
With both rooted in Srinagar city, Mr Sagar’s elevation was bound to rankle.What tipped the scales in Mr Sagar’s favour remains unclear, but the controversy was avoidable. Mr Gul may not take any drastic step, yet with the BJP aiming to form its first government in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, nothing can be ruled out.
Meanwhile, Mr Mehdi is positioning himself as a rallying point for disgruntled NC members, though his strength remains untested.Across the Union Territory, the decision to drop Mr Satish Sharma is even more baffling. An independent MLA, he was the only minister from Hindu-majority central Jammu, the BJP’s stronghold.
His exclusion will revive complaints of regional bias against Jammu, a region that gave the BJP two Lok Sabha seats and 29 assembly seats yet has seen little in return.Kashmir did hand the NC an overwhelming mandate, but that does not release the Abdullahs from their duty towards Jammu. With the NC and the Congress both drawing a blank in central Jammu, retaining the young and capable Mr Sharma was the least they could have done.
Mr Sharma, for his part, should treat the setback as an opportunity. Well educated and articulate, he faces a Jammu landscape marked by a leadership vacuum across the BJP and the Congress, with the NC barely present in the central region. He can build on his win as an independent and the legacy of his father, former MP Mr Madan Lal Sharma.
As patriarch, Dr Abdullah might have mentored Mr Sharma and groomed him for the future. Instead, political compulsions, regional pressure and an anxious effort to protect the Kashmir base appear to have pushed the Abdullahs into these missteps. They must now guard against BJP strategists waiting to exploit them.
The writer is a policy analyst