JAMMU and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expanded his Council of ministers on Tuesday with the induction of four new faces from the Kashmir valley, triggering internal party discontent and protests, even as the Opposition BJP hit out at the ruling alliance over“regional and cultural imbalance”. The four National Conference (NC) leaders, veteran politician Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mir Saifullah, Shameema Firdous, and Altaf Ahmad Wani (Kalloo), were administered the oath of office by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha at Lok Bhawan here. With all four inductees hailing from Kashmir, the expansion has shifted the balance of the Cabinet in the two-year-old Government heavily towards theValley. Seven ministers in the now nine-member Council hail from Kashmir, while Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Chaudhary and Javaid Rana remain the only two representatives from the Jammu region. Independent MLA from Chhamb, Satish Sharma, was dropped from the Cabinet to accommodate the new inductees.

 

Ahead of the expansion, all ministers had formally submitted their resignations to the Chief Minister to facilitate the reshuffle. The maximum allowed strength of the J&K Council of Ministers is nine, adhering to the statutory 10 per cent limit of the 90-member Assembly in the Union Territory. The reshuffle sparked immediate anger among supporters of six-time NC MLA from Eidgah, Mubarak Gul, who staged a noisy protest outside the party headquarters at Nawa-e-Subah after his name was omitted from the Cabinet list. Agitated workers raised slogans against the decision, calling it a grave injustice to a leader with 40 years of service. In a swift bid to contain the mounting resentment, NC President Farooq Abdullah rushed to the party headquarters shortly after the ceremony and appointed Gul as the party’s new General Secretary, replacing Sagar, who joined the Cabinet. Among the new inductees, Sagar - a seven-time MLA who took his oath in Urdu - has never lost an Assembly election since his debut in 1983. Saifullah, who won from Trehgam post-delimitation in 2024, alongside first-time ministers Wani (Pahalgam) and Firdous (Habbakadal), took their oath in English. Firdous, who also heads the NC’s women’s wing, becomes the second woman minister in the cabinet alongside Sakina Itoo.