Chaotic scenes unfolded at the Srinagar headquarters of Jammu and Kashmir's ruling National Conference (NC) on Tuesday as supporters of veteran party leader and six-time Eidgah MLA, Mubarak Gul, staged protests after he was overlooked for a ministerial berth.
The protesters stormed the party office, heckled newly appointed minister Ali Mohammad Sagar and raised slogans, including "Gul Gul Sher Gul" and "Party ka faisla namanzoor (the party's decision is unacceptable)."
The loud show of dissent laid bare an apparent rift within the NC, having taken place shortly after the expansion of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's council of ministers.
The opposition BJP took a dig at the stability of the NC-led government of the Union Territory (UT), saying its "days are numbered."
The leader expanded his council of ministers during the day. The government will fall on its own," said BJP MLA and the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the J&K Assembly, Sunil Sharma.
"It's the beginning of the end," he said, referring to the visible rift within the NC. Sharma also said that his party had nothing to do with the internal fissures of the ruling party.
NEW J&K CABINET MEMBERS
Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mir Saifullah, Shameema Firdous and Altaf Ahmad Wani, also known as Kalloo, are the newly inducted members of the Omar Abdullah-led Cabinet.
All four of them are from the Kashmir Valley.
The oath-taking ceremony was attended by CM Abdullah, Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Chaudhary, Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather, LoP Sharma, NC president Farooq Abdullah and MLAs from the ruling alliance as well as the opposition PDP and BJP.
The Omar Abdullah-led Cabinet earlier had six members. As per the rules, a cabinet in a UT can be up to 10 per cent of the assembly strength, which is 90 in J&K.
The Congress, an ally of the government, has stayed out of the Cabinet and maintained that it will not join the council of ministers until J&K's statehood is restored.
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(With PTI inputs)