The empty streets of August 5 delivered a message that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah cannot afford to misread. His party’s protest march at Nawa-i-Subah drew leaders, legislators and workers — but not the people. The public stayed away, went to work, opened their shops, and quietly told the ruling National Conference what it thinks of a government that protests instead of governs.
The request to the Chief Minister is simple and direct: stop expending political capital on what lies beyond your constitutional reach, and start delivering on what lies squarely within it. The restoration of Article 370 is not in your hands. Statehood, too, rests with Parliament and the Union government. Marching against decisions you cannot reverse may satisfy party sentiment, but it changes nothing on the ground — and the ground is where your government is failing.
Look instead at the departments your ministers actually control. The Rural Development Department, which touches the largest share of our population, is crying for attention: panchayat works are stalled, MGNREGA payments are delayed, rural roads and drainage schemes limp along without monitoring. The Revenue Department is in no better shape — mutation cases pile up for months, ordinary villagers make endless rounds of tehsil offices for a simple extract of records, and digitisation remains a half-finished promise. Add to this a power supply that collapsed in the peak of summer, with winter’s darkness already looming, and the picture of a governance deficit is complete.
The people of Jammu and Kashmir gave the National Conference a historic mandate in 2024 not to lead processions but to run an administration. Every day spent on symbolic protest is a day stolen from file clearances, field inspections and public grievance redressal. The PDP and others may afford the luxury of slogans; a sitting Chief Minister cannot.
Mr. Abdullah, the wounds you speak of are real, but so are the unpaid wages, the pending mutations and the darkened homes. Fix the tehsil office and the village road first. History will judge you by governance delivered, not grievances performed.
