Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is likely to carry out the first major reshuffle of his cabinet next week, according to Kashmir Life, with five senior National Conference leaders expected to be inducted as ministers and two sitting ministers likely to be dropped. The expansion is expected to take place in Srinagar as the government approaches the completion of its second year in office on 16 October. The government assumed office in October 2024.
The five names reported as likely inductees are Abdul Rahim Rather, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Nazir Ahmad Gurezi, Altaf Ahmad Kaloo and Aijaz Jan. All five are National Conference legislators. The report said that first-time MLAs will not be accommodated, and the two ministers expected to be removed were not named. Congress, which supports the National Conference-led government from outside, is not joining the reshuffle.
The size of the council of ministers is limited by law. With 90 members in the Legislative Assembly, the maximum is 10 percent, which comes to nine ministers including the Chief Minister, as the report explained. That ceiling is why any induction requires a vacancy, and why two ministers are reported to be on their way out.
There is a knock-on effect in the Assembly. Rather is the Speaker, and Kashmir Life reported that he is likely to step down from that post to join the cabinet, with Mubarak Gul positioned as his successor. The Speaker’s seat has to be filled before the House meets again, so the reshuffle may also bring a change in the Assembly’s leadership.
The timing and the criteria have drawn commentary. In a column in Kashmir Observer on 13 October, advocate and former civil servant Farooq Ahmad Khan argued that Omar Abdullah should prioritise administrative competence along with political considerations in choosing ministers, because the elected government works under structural constraints. He wrote that key postings are controlled by the Lieutenant Governor and that amendments made in July 2024 route the posting of administrative secretaries through the Lieutenant Governor.
The column cited the statehood resolution episode as an example, saying that the Law Secretary communicated with the Speaker through the Chief Secretary without the Chief Minister’s knowledge. It argued that ministers need to understand how their departments work, track implementation and question delays, and that experience matters but younger legislators with the right skills deserve opportunities. These are the author’s views and not government positions.
Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary, who attended the Darbar Move review meeting on 13 October, is among the senior figures already in the cabinet, according to Kashmir Observer. The reshuffle will not change that, since the reports speak only of five additions and two departures, and the Chief Minister retains the final say on portfolios.
The reshuffle has not been announced officially, and the reports use words such as “likely” and “expected”. If it goes ahead as described, it will rebalance the cabinet towards senior National Conference figures from both the Kashmir and Jammu regions while leaving Congress outside. IndiaX24 will report on the official list, the portfolio allocation and the new Speaker once they are confirmed.
Featured image: Omar Abdullah, Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (file photo, 2010). Photo by Mohd Saleem Wani, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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