JAMMU: Controversy hit a new
reshuffled Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday when BJP leader Kavinder Gupta
said after being sworn in as Deputy Chief Minister that the rape and murder of
a young girl in Kathua was a “minor issue” that should not have been hyped.
“The Kathua incident is a minor
issue. It should not have been hyped this much,” Gupta said about the crime
that triggered widespread outrage across the country and cost two of his party
colleagues their ministerial jobs in the Mehbooba Mufti-led BJP-PDP coalition
government.
Gupta, a known RSS loyalist,
however, sought to correct the statement later, saying the matter was already
in the court and should be left to the Supreme Court to decide about it.
“It is not good to keep talking
about it repeatedly. It is not good to keep playing it up again and again. What
I said earlier was that there are many such incidents, nobody should provoke
(people) about such incidents deliberately.”
This is not Gupta’s first brush
with controversy. As the speaker of the legislative Assembly earlier, he had
sparked row by blaming the Rohingya refugees living in Jammu for the attack on
an army camp in Sunjwan in February.
Earlier, in a major mid-term
cabinet overhaul, Gupta was sworn in as the new Deputy Chief Minister replacing
Nirmal Singh, who is set to become the Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir
legislative assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also
inducted Satpal Sharma, its state unit chief, as a cabinet minister along with
new faces Rajiv Jasrotia, Sunil Kumar Sharma, Devender Kumar Maniyal and Shakti
Raj Parihar.
Jasrotiya, who is the Kathua
MLA, was among those seen in a video clip trying to incite violence against the
nomadic Muslim community. He attended a rally in support of the Kathua accused.
The issue led to the
resignation of BJP leaders Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga from the
government over their participation in a rally, supporting the accused in the
crime against an eight-year-old who belonged the nomadic community and lived in
a tented accommodation with her family in a Kathua village.
Former Chief Minister and
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti
appeared confused on her stand over Kathua as one of the participants in
“pro-rapists” rally was now a minister in her cabinet.
“Two BJP ministers removed in
J&K for attending a pro-rapist rally and a MLA who is reported to have
attended the same rally is promoted as a minister. Why are the BJP/Mehbooba
Mufti confused about where they stand on the Kathua rape?” Abdullah tweeted.
The BJP also withdrew three of
its ministers — Nirmal Singh, Bali Bhagat and Priya Sethi — from the
government. Singh had angered many BJP supporters when he supported the
government’s move for a Crime Branch investigation into the Kathua crime.
All BJP ministers, except for
Singh, resigned from the cabinet earlier this month to pave the way for the
cabinet rejig. Singh resigned on Sunday night.
The PDP also dropped its senior
leader Abdul Haq Khan, the Law and Rural Development Minister, from the
cabinet. Muhammad Khalil Bandh and Muhammad Ashraf Mir, MLAs from Pulwama and
Srinagar, were sworn in as cabinet ministers on PDP quota.
The oath of office and secrecy
was administered by Governor N.N. Vohra at the Jammu Convention Centre.
As per the constitution of the
state, the council of ministers in Jammu and Kashmir can only have 25 ministers
including the Chief Minister.
IANS
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