16 Vice Chairpersons appointment on hold by Election Commission

The PDP-BJP coalition received a setback when the Election Commission of India (ECI) today kept in abeyance the “controversial” appointment of 16 politicians as vice-chairpersons of various Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) ahead of the byelections to the Srinagar and Anantnag Parliamentary constituencies.
On March 10, the state government had appointed middle-rung leaders belonging of the PDP and BJP as vice-chairpersons of various PSUs already running in huge losses. These appointments were dubbed as “political bribery” by the opposition National Conference and Congress.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), J&K, Shantmanu said the appointments of vice-chairpersons have been kept in abeyance till the completion of the Lok Sabha byelections. He said the ECI had taken the decision of keeping these appointments in abeyance. “The decision on these appointment would be taken only after the completion of the election process,” the CEO said.
Interestingly, the schedule for the Lok Sabha byelections was announced on March 9 and these appointments were made on the very next day.
As per schedule announced by the ECI, the polling for the Srinagar and Anantnag parliamentary constituencies will be held on April 9 and 12, respectively. The counting of votes for both the parliamentary seats will be held on April 15 and the election process will be completed on April 16. Now decision on these controversial political appointments will be taken after April 16.
Ironically, majority of the leaders belonging to the BJP have already joined these PSUs with much fanfare and publicity in the presence of party ministers and senior leaders.
The day the state government had made these appointments, opposition NC was quick to react as former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had termed it as “blatant violation” of the model code of conduct. The Congress, too, had echoed Omar’s voice and described the state government’s decision as “political bribery” to rehabilitate ruling party leaders.
These “rehabilitated” politicians are entitled to a monthly salary of Rs 80,000 per month, besides hefty perks and allowances to “serve” these PSUs which have already been facing huge losses for the last so many years.
On the day of these appointments, Omar Abdullah had tweeted, “This is blatant violation of the election code of conduct and has been done to silence the rumblings of discontent in the two parties.”
The NC had also filed a complaint with the ECI over “official instructions issued by the Chief Minister’s Office for some high-profile appointments being made to various PSUs”.
As reported earlier on an average each of these ruling coalition politicians will be paid Rs 1.5 lakh per month from the coffers of the state government, which is already facing financial crunch.