Srinagar, June 29 (DNS) In a highly significant step to defuse the volatile situation in the Kashmir valley, the state government today announced that it was not going ahead with the decision of handing over 40 hectares of land to the Board handling the Amarnath Yatra, a move that has plunged the state into a political crisis.
After a week-long street protests that had nearly paralysed the valley, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told a press conference here that the state government had assured Governor N N Vohra, who is chairman of Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB), that the state was in a better position to provide better facilities to pilgrims on a large scale than the board. This was accepted by the Governor who gave up SASB's claim on the forest land.
Azad's decision came less than 24 hours after Congress party's coalition partner in government PDP had pulled out of the state government with all its nine ministers resigning over the issue.
Azad, who has accused PDP of backtracking on the controversial cabinet decision to divert the land to SASB, left no one in doubt that he does not want PDP back in the government by getting the resignation of the ministers accepted by the Governor although his government has been reduced to a minority.
Azad clearly expects to continue in power even as a minority government in the four months to the assembly elections due before mid-November. He is unlikely to get support of the other major party National Conference to regain his majority, nor does he require it. More DNS
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