WHAT COST FORMER DY CM HIS CHAIR?
JAMMU:EVEN as BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav on Monday claimed the cabinet reshuffle to be a mid-term exercise on completing three years of coalition government, Nirmal Singh’s last-minute ouster from the post of deputy CM is being attributed to his perceived weakkneed approach towards PDP in the last three years.
What compounded his problems were some of his controversial statements ever since he became deputy CM and strong resentment among party cadres and a section of the RSS. While PDP led by CM Mehbooba Mufti has been pursuing its agenda, Nirmal Singh was seen as a man, who compromised with the issues of Jammu region.
A look back at his controversial statements reveal how he annoyed the people of Jammu region from where his party won 25 seats in 2014 Assembly elections. Amid an agitation in Jammu for AIIMS, on April 24, 2015, Singh went overboard and had said none could snatch AIIMS from Kashmir and give it to Jammu.
On April 6, 2016, he again had courted controversy when without verifying the facts, he had said lathi-charge on students inside NIT Srinagar was a mild one. Later, he had said he was misinformed. Hundreds of students who tried to hoist the Tricolour inside the NIT campus in Srinagar were injured in the lathi-charge.
On July 30, 2016, following CM’S statement, security forces were unaware about Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani’s identity during the encounter in which he was neutralised, Singh, contrary to BJP’S stand on terrorism, also toed the CM’S line and described it an “accident”. This statement had also come under sharp criticism from the BJP high command.
In November that year, Singh courted another controversy by terming the Nagrota cantonment terror attack as a “minor” incident despite the fact that seven army personnel including two officers were killed in it.
The political analysts here in the state opined that what added to the resentment of party cadre was the reluctant approach of Singh on Kathua case, and controversial minutes of the meeting of the tribal affairs department on February 14.