Speak within pay and grade: J&K parties after Chief Secy remarks

J&K Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam’s remark that “not a single soul cried” over the detention of mainstream political leaders after the abrogation of J&K’s special status has triggered a row, with political leaders across the divide asking why he does not join politics if he is so keen on making political statements. “The Chief Secretary needs to speak within his pay and grade,” People’s Conference said in an official release. “Kashmir has this problem where people get delusions of grandeur. It seems like the Chief Secretary is the latest victim… We hope that Delhi comes out of their delusions. If the utterances of the Chief Secretary are any indicators of what he thinks of himself and this is what he briefs his bosses, then Delhi doesn’t need enemies in Kashmir.”

Party spokesman Adnan Ashraf said people of J&K are fed up with the “squeaky clean image some officers want to cultivate.

The National Conference said it cannot be a coincidence that the BJP and the bureaucracy are parroting the same line of thought. “It is quite alarming where a serving civil servant is overtly spewing venom against the entire mainstream political spectrum to hide the abject failures of the administration under him since 20 June 2018,” spokesman Imran Nabi said. “The local administration is yet to acquire necessary life saving equipment for hospitals. Let CS come up with a report card of his performance,” he added.

“The Chief Secretary has come here with a colonial mindset and being the chief executioner of RSS in Kashmir,” the PDP said. The Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party asked the Chief Secretary to remain “apolitical”.

Communist leader M Y Tarigami asked what the Chief Secretary has done to eradicate corruption from J&K for the last two years. “There is a wide perception that the administration has become more corrupt after the abrogation of Article 370 and BJP government’s claim to give Kashmir corruption-free administration was simply rhetoric.