Dr. Gopal Parthasarthi Sharma
With the assigning of Finance Ministry charge to Altaf Bhukhari as an interim measure, curtain seems to have finally been drawn over Haseeb A Drabu’s stint as Finance Minister under present dispensation. Any reconciliatory scope ceases to be there now. An abrupt, unceremonial and outrageous ouster of an important minister from the State Cabinet has come as a big bombshell to the victim as well as to his well wishers. Those who considered him a daring finance minister known for taking bold steps directed towards transparency and better financial management of the state must be feeling devastated. The million dollar question remains as to what prompted Chief Minister to go for such an extreme step vis-à-vis a high profile minister of her cabinet? Neither Haseeb A Drabu nor his well wishers and fans would ever agree to the reasons being cited for his fall. How can a mere statement on Kashmir bring such a catastrophe for him?
Drabu’s statement in a function organized by the PHDCCI in New Delhi that “people were barking up the wrong tree for the last 50-70 years” being trumpeted for his devastation may not have gone well with various stakeholders to Kashmir Issue. As claimed by his own statement on his ouster he had been talking on these lines in the past too. The only probability of taking such a serious offence out of this statement is the decoding wrong meaning of the verb “barking” (which certainly is not the case).
Undoubtedly, most of the stakeholders to the Kashmir Issue want the “Kashmir pot” boiling for eternity as it ensures their financial as well as political survival. Any statement that trivializes their stated position and consequently puts there bread and butter at risk is poison to their ears. This hard reality must have put the party in a dock after Drabu’s statement in Delhi. Moreover he was under severe criticism for his active role in GST implementation in the state. Most of the stakeholders feel that he facilitated financial integration of the state with the whole nation at the cost of erosion of special status of the state. His preference for pure economic sense over political considerations is yet another reason for his criticism across political spectrum.
Opposition, separatist camp, party cadre, local media and external stakeholders might have pressurized Ms Mehbooba Mufti to act against him on different counts but there was no need to buckle down so easily. She should have bought more time by engaging Drabu and asking for some sort of softening his stance or clarification. The party and the government could have easily saved the day by reacting with a standard statement that “he was misquoted by media” or by simply disassociating from his statement calling it his “personal take” on the issue. Quite surprisingly, he was not even given a chance to defend and was thrown out without being informed about the decision.
Another possible reason for his fall seems to be his ever growing popularity owing to his revolutionary and change-oriented budgets one after the other. Right from his first budget speech till the last one in January this year, he was all out to fix the whole budgetary process for better. Systemic changes that he promised in earlier budgets actually saw the light in his latest budget. His bold revelations about GPF management, shortcomings of age old and redundant treasury system and financial mismanagement in certain departments has certainly earned him more enemies than friends. His strict stance regarding financial discipline in the whole system has already jeopardized many departments in the state. Many of his budgetary experiments may have irked many politicians, bureaucrats, contractor mafia and business tycoons who are against transparency. His reluctance on giving any leverage on backdoor appointments, POA system, contractor liabilities and subsequent statewide stir by contractors is a testimony to this fact. Such people might have colluded and jointly pressurized the party leadership for some immediate action against Drabu and the statement in Delhi has just been used as a lame excuse for crucifying him. Things have been brewing up for quite some time against him.
Being a key person in coalition management he had close ties with Delhi and this might have created some sort of inconvenience for some quarters in the party and may have even triggered a sense of insecurity for the party high command too. She might have used his dismissal as a strong signal for all the possible parallel power centers in the party. Party think-tanks must be worried about some possible political realignment in Kashmir politics in the light of ever-straining relations between coalition partners. His close equation with Delhi and active role in running the coalition in the state might have triggered a sense of insecurity among other forces within party. It’s baffling that instead of using good governance to expand the party base, the party is on a losing streak with exit of big names like Karra, Vikramaditya Singh, and more recently MLC Surinder Choudhary.
The real reasons behind his removal have started unraveling with the POA being kept in abeyance by the new Finance Minister. It is quite evident now that the contractors and various employee lobbies wanted him to go. The way contractors were protesting and had virtually stopped developmental work across the state must have triggered this unwarranted action. With the Governor pressing for local bodies and panchayat elections keeping contractors out of favors would have been suicidal for the Government.
If more such reversals of Drabu’s policies surface, it will prove that there are many lobbies who wanted his head to roll down. Chief Minister’s intriguing silence over the issue has added more element of suspense to it as she has evaded all media questions on the issue. Even the coalition partner BJP and its leadership is tight-lipped on the issue calling it an “internal matter of PDP”. Whatever be the reason for Drabu’s fall, the new finance minister must ensure that good decisions of his predecessor are not reversed for political considerations.
Dr. Haseeb A Drabu seems to have earned notoriety of being head strong. Even his flight from being a journalist to J&K Bank Chairman and finally state’s finance minister might have made a lot of people envious. His large frame physique, high pitch voice, a careless gait and a seemingly egotistical work style might have brought him down for now but the question still remains unanswered – were his words so poisonous that they killed his relationship with the Government so abruptly? Whatever are the reasons, whoever behind his ouster he is sure to make a big comeback. The manner, the team, and the timing of his resurgence is bound to unsettle his detractors.
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