As suspense over new Government formation in Jammu & Kashmir continued in the absence of fresh parleys between the top brass of BJP and PDP, over one dozen members of Council of Ministers of Mufti Mohd Sayeed have been served notices by the State estate department to vacate their ministerial bunglows within next seven days.
According to highly placed official sources, “the notices were served to former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, former Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu, former Health Minister lal Singh, former Education Minister Nayeen Akhtar, former Social Welfare and Forest Minister Bali Bhagat, former Youth Services, Sports and IT Minister Imran Raza Ansari, former Science and Technology and Animal Husbandry Minister Sajjad lone, former Agriculture Minister Ghulam Nabi lone Hanjura, Former R&D Minister Abdul Haq Khan, former Industries Minister Chandra Prakash Ganga on Wednesday to vacate their ministerial bunglows within next seven days”.
PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti had first of all vacated the official residence of her father in Jammu less than 10 days after his sudden demise in AIIMS in New Delhi on January 7. These former ministers were entitled to free accommodation for a period of one month after the imposition of Governors rule on January 9. Since February 9 they were over staying in their ministerial bunglows keenly awaiting for the Government formation in the State.
The process to vacate the ministerial bunglows was initiated by the Governors administration after the completion of the one month period. According to the notices served to these former ministers, “The ministers have been directed to hand over the possession of ministerial bunglows to the State estates department within a period of seven days from the date of issuance of notices”.
The notices were also issued to junior ministers including BJP’s Sunil Sharma, Priya Sethi and PDP’s Mohd Ashraf Mir. Notices were not served to those ministers who were not occupying ministerial bunglows and were either staying in private houses or MlA quarters. These included PDP’s Abdul Rehman Veeri, Ch Zulfkar Ali,Asiya Naqash, Abdul Ghani Kohli,Abdul Majid Padder, Sukhnandan Choudhary and Javaid Mustafa Mir.
A handful of senior PDP ministers including Syed Mohd Altaf Bukhari, Syed Basharat Ahmad Bukhari were not served notices because they had informed the State estates department in advance that they were ready to vacate the ministerial bunglows shortly and had already shifted out with their personal belongings.
Some of the senior ministers still nurturing hopes of relaunch of BJP-PDP alliance Government in the State have also requested the State estates department to find out alternate accommodation for them as they considered their existing houses ‘unlucky’ for their long political career ahead.