Girish Chandra Murmu resigned as the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday after his administration was allegedly found to be on the other side of Delhi’s agenda of fostering an all-time high connect between the government and the people and the revival of political activity, sources privy to the developments told The Tribune.

Murmu, who had started on a promising note for he had no political baggage, fell into the trap of the fractured bureaucracy and the “prejudiced notions” about the political parties in Kashmir. At times the instructions from the Centre took days to get implemented and the urgent matters like the holding of the byelection to over 12,000 vacant seats in panchayats and creating an attractive terrain for political activity were allowed to take the backseat in the administration’s agenda.

This affected the delivery system and all blame fell at Delhi’s doorstep.

Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah had commented “there was no government, there is an L-G and his advisers and there is no accountability whatsoever”.

Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari had also rued the “factionalism in bureaucracy and charged that no one knows who is calling the shots and from where”, adding that “accountability had gone for a toss”.

About six weeks ago , he was told by Delhi to make the administration live up to the expectations of the people and speed up the process on three fronts – accountability, creating a favourable situation for the resumption of political activity by lifting veils of fear and speeding up development with a simultaneous aggressive fight against Covid.

Although Delhi’s primary interest appeared to be to expand the influence of the saffron party in areas and among people, it found that the lack of political activity of other parties was hurting its prospects. Its leaders were killed and there was a scenario of terror overshadowing everything with youths joining militancy. It had always considered Jammu as its bastion, but the governance-deficit had started causing alarm within the BJP as well.

Sources said all these factors made Delhi recall him.

Courtesy: Daily Tribune:  6th August, 2020