Thaindian News

Jammu, July 21 (IANS) Relations between Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling coalition partners, the Congress and National Conference, are tense ahead of a coordination committee meeting in Srinagar Friday, sources in the coalition said.

A Congress leader told IANS that state party chief Saif-ud-Din Soz, who is also the coordination committee chairman, wants the views of the Congress to be taken into account before the government makes any decision public.

The Congress is mostly concerned with the transfer of powers to panchayats, and also on the members to be chosen for the state accountability commission, an anti-corruption institution whose posts have been lying vacant for nearly six years now.

The National Conference, on the other hand, thinks that Congress is making the government’s decision making process a hostage to politics.

A party leader told IANS that National Conference was the leading partner in the coalition and decisions were taken on the basis of merit and suitability.

“We are taking Congress ministers into confidence on whole lot of issues,” the minister said.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who used to attend the coordination committee meetings until last year, has stopped attending them.

No chief minister of the coalition government used to take part in such meetings in the past even during the previous Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-Congress rule.