During his 100 days in office, Farooq Abdullah has delivered more wides and no-balls than the fours and sixes required to win the series against the eight-year-long violence in Jammu and Kashmir. While his supporters say that his 100 days is too short a period to assess the performance of a government pitched against heavy odds, his detractors argue that Abdullah has begun his fourth term in office in exactly the same manner he did the last time. An impression is fast gaining ground in the state that the Chief Minister is every bit his previous self when travel and socialising took most of his time.
The sooner he shuns his habit of taking things easy, the better for all of us, but unfortunately taking things lightly comes as second nature to our leader, says a senior leader of the ruling National Conference.
On the administrative front, a strange inaction seems to have penetrated every arm of the government. The demolition campaign against unauthorised constructions has been given up with the same earnestness with which it had been started.
The same fate seems to have met most of the welfare schemes and economic packages.
The efforts to gather a political momentum by continued interaction with the masses are hardly pursued seriously and insiders suggest that the same have been kept in abeyance because of security reasons.
Militancy, which at one stage appeared to be dying, has once again started posing serious problems.
Following alarming missives from various intelligence agencies, the Unified Command, whose charge has been reverted to the local police, had to be reconstituted and the army once again put at its head.Abdullah seems to have reconciled to the fact that the war against insurgency operations suggests that at least this vital aspect is being monitored by him personally.
On their part , in order to keep the pot boiling, the secessionists have devised a new strategy.
They are now avoiding direct encounters with the security forces. Instead, they choose soft targets like the unguarded ground level activists of the ruling party and those who helped conduct elections in the state.
Secessionists also declared amnesty for surrendered militants in order to woo them back. This initially produced some results as many as 40 pro-India militants rejoined the separatist ranks deserting pro-India militant groups. But, the army quickly started its damage control operations by reactivating such groups.
In addition to checking further reversals, the armys strategy also forced back around six of the deserters to return to their camps alongwith weapons.
Deployed forces have claimed that they have killed about seven of such renegades in the last one month.
With the revival of thrust on secessionists there has been a marked increase in the number of crackdown operations in the valley. Such operations require residents to brave the sub-zero temperatures where they have to wait for hours before being cleared. This has resulted in sharp criticism against Abdullahs government, but the Chief Minister believes that unless militancy is wiped out through mounted pressure on secessionists, the common man shall have to bear with such inconveniences.
His political opponents which includes the state Congress leaders have started finding fault with his style of governance. This, however, would not pose any serious threat to government which is perched firmly with two thirds majority in the Assembly. Abdullahs worst opponent has always been his own temperament, as a political analyst put it.
