Peoples Conference leader Sajjad Lone wanted to be Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister just before the dissolution of the Assembly in 2018 although he had only six MLAs, the erstwhile State\u2019s last Governor Satya Pal Malik has said.
\nThrowing light on behind-the-scenes political manoeuvring that preceded the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly by him in 2018, Malik, now the Governor of Meghalaya, described Lone as the \u201cblue-eyed boy\u201d of the Centre.
\nHe said he had asked Lone to write to him about the support he enjoyed in the 87-member House. Lone said he had six MLAs but \u201ctold me if you administer me the oath, I will prove my majority in a week\u201d.
\nMalik spoke of the circumstances in which he dissolved the Assembly in November 2018 although PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti had staked claim to form a Government with the support of the Congress and the National Conference (NC).
\nThe PDP-BJP Government headed by Mehbooba had earlier collapsed in June 2018 after the BJP pulled out of the coalition.
\nMalik said he had told Lone, \u201cThat is not the governor\u2019s role and I will not do it. The Supreme Court will flog me. The next day the Supreme Court will say you summon the House. You will lose. I will not do this.\u201d
\nThe Governor said it seemed that the PDP-NC-Congress combine may have had a majority but \u201cfoolishly\u201d they had not held a formal meeting or passed a resolution or given a letter of support \u201cto the lady (Mehbooba)\u201d.
\nMalik told \u201cThe Wire\u201d in an interview that he had spoken to the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley about the situation and sought directions from the Centre. He said he had told Jaitley that if he got a letter from Mehbooba Mufti staking claim to form the Government, \u201cI am bound to call her for oath\u201d.
\nThe Centre had not given him any advice and told him to do what he thought was appropriate. He had then dissolved the Assembly in November 2018, Malik said.
\nMehbooba Mufti wanted to reach the Governor\u2019s house with the support of 56 MLAs which included the Congress and the NC, but the letter could not be delivered as the fax machine of the Raj Bhavan in Jammu was out of order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peoples Conference leader Sajjad Lone wanted to be Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister just before the dissolution of the Assembly in 2018 although he had only six MLAs, the erstwhile State\u2019s last Governor Satya Pal Malik has said. Throwing light on behind-the-scenes political manoeuvring that preceded the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-latest-news","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jammukashmirhighlights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}