Amid unruly scenes and sloganeering, BJP legislators on Tuesday walked out of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly demanding regularization of daily wagers in the Union territory.

They also protested against Monday’s lathicharge on the demonstrating daily wagers of the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department.

Advertisement

The leader of opposition and BJP leader Sunil Sharma raised the issue of regularization of daily wagers and demanded a response from the government.

Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather asked the members to maintain order as the government has already constituted a committee headed by the chief secretary to examine the issue of regularization of daily wagers and submit the report within six months.

Pointing towards senior BJP legislator Sham Lal Sharma, the treasury benches questioned him why he did not regularize the daily wagers when he himself was the PHE minister.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appealed to the protesting daily wagers to resume their duty and put their claims before the committee headed by the chief secretary.

“I appeal to the protesting daily wagers to resume their duties and by the time let the committee complete its assigned task and submit the report,” he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary accused BJP MLAs of orchestrating protests to attract media attention, leading to a heated exchange between the treasury and opposition benches.

Members on the treasury benches said the police which cane-charged the protesting employees is directly under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Lt Governor, and not under the control of the elected UT government.

However, the BJP members and the treasury benches traded charges before the former trooped out of the House raising slogans against the government.

Meanwhile, Peoples Conference MLA Sajad Lone walked out of the Assembly in protest against a Bill amending Section 2 of the Goods and Services Tax Act (GST).

The bill sought to replace “J&K State” with “J&K UT,” a move he said amounted to endorsing Jammu and Kashmir’s Union Territory status.

He questioned why the Assembly was being consulted now when it was not asked before the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A or the downgrading of J&K to a UT.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who had moved the Bill, made it clear that the Bill does not ratify the changes that were made by the BJP government on 5 August 2019.

He said that Lone’s protest was aimed to gather media’s camera attention.

Omar said that during his meetings with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, he has time and again pressed the demand for restoration of J-K’s statehood and we do not endorse the changes that were made on 5 August 2019.