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Ghulam Nabi Azad to be next J-K CM

     New Delhi: The Congress party has announced that Union Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will be the new Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Congress General Secretary and in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir, Ambika Soni, at a press conference said that Azad would be sworn- in as the Chief Minister of the state on November 2 in Srinagar. Soni said that Congress President Sonia Gandhi had taken the decision after consulting party leaders, including the legislators from the state. Earlier, on Sunday, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed had come to New Delhi to meet Sonia, and held talks with the Congress leadership on the issue of transfer of power in the state. Ahead of Mufti's meeting, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti had met Sonia. Mufti had reportedly asked the Congress to consult its leaders on the handover of power in Jammu and Kashmir. The discussion was called after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held consultations last Saturday with key members of his cabinet on the issue. Incidentally, Azad would be sworn in exactly three years after the completion of Mufti's government.

       The two parties had agreed in 2002 to share power on a three-year rotation basis in the six-term of the Assembly after the elections produced a hung verdict. Under the power sharing agreement between the allies, Sayeed's governing PDP was to transfer control of government to the Congress on November 2, after completing three years in office to pave way for the coalition partner to head the alliance government. While earlier there were reports that the Congress was preferring to delay the transfer of power, the PDP was pushing for a quick decision. It had said that uncertainty in the matter was causing confusion in the state's administration and seriously affecting the quake relief operations. The 2002 assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir had resulted in a hung assembly, and as a compromise formula to form a government in the state, the PDP, the Congress and the Panthers Party forged an alliance. The bigger alliance partner the Congress, with 20 seats in an 87 member Assembly, decided to install the then PDP president Mufti Muhammad Sayeed whose party had a tally of 16 seats, as the chief minister for three years. Assembly polls in J and K are held every six years, as against other states that go to polls every five years. Following the 2002 elections, which no party could secure a majority, the Congress, the PDP and the Panthers Party, entered into an alliance to keep the then NDA ally and ruling party the National Conference out of power. The NC could win only 28 seats in the polls, which was almost half of its strength in the previous assembly.

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