Srinagar: Dissident National Conference (NC) MLAs are likely to meet party president Farooq Abdullah here on Friday to air their grievances following the recent cabinet reshuffle, party sources said.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is also expected to attend the crucial meeting, as the party leadership seeks to pacify the legislators unhappy at being omitted from the council of ministers.
The development comes against the backdrop of growing resentment among several senior leaders, including six-time MLA Mubarak Gul, following the October 27 cabinet expansion in which four new ministers were inducted, taking the council of ministers to its maximum permissible statutory limit of nine.
Party sources said the disgruntled legislators had raised a number of organisational and administrative concerns with the top brass and sought a formal audience to press their case.
The October 27 expansion saw senior NC leaders Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mir Saifullah, Shameema Firdous, and Altaf Ahmad Wani (Kalloo) being sworn in by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, filling all available slots under the 10 per cent constitutional ceiling for the 90-member Union Territory Assembly.
Following the cabinet expansion, scores of party workers staged protests over Eidgah MLA Mubarak Gul’s exclusion. Some of the MLAs had met at one place but they had not revealed what transpired during the meeting.
Gul’s camp had announced that he may meet the media on Wednesday, but the same was cancelled after a possible announcement of a Friday meeting with Farooq Abdullah.
The ruling National Conference has officially played down reports of any internal rebellion or external political threat and termed the meeting of MLAs as a routine pre-Darbar move social gathering over lunch.
Hazratbal MLA Salman Sagar, at a press conference on Wednesday, also downplayed the murmurs of any dissidents and said that these are only reports being floated by people having vested interests.
