The past one month has been a tough one for Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. His three year relentless “jihad against corruption” seems to have boomeranged on him and now hangs like a millstone around his neck.

With the raging controversy over the Kundal Committee report on corruption in the forest ministry even closing in on his forest contractor brothers, Azad finds it hard to distance himself from the swirling muck which has already claimed state Congress president Peerzada Muhammad Sayeed.

And all this has happened at a time when the state is bound for the Assembly elections which are likely to be held before October this year.

On the other hand, Azad’s coalition partner, People’s Democratic Party, too hasn’t emerged unscathed.

The Kundal report has indicted two senior ministers of the party — Finance Minister Tariq Hameed Qarra and Forest Minister Qazi Muhammad Afzal. Making things further uneasy for the PDP, the Opposition National Conference has gone to town with the issue.

In the recent Assembly session in Jammu, during which the report was tabled, the NC made the Kundal report the centre of the debate. In fact, the Government was forced to adjourn the session ten days ahead of the schedule as NC continued to stall the proceedings, demanding resignation of the two PDP ministers.

The Assembly session, one of the most tempestuous in the state, also saw an independent MLA, Shoaib Lone, charging the state Congress President Peerzada Sayeed with taking a bribe of Rs 40,000 for giving permission to his sister for opening an elementary teaching training institute. The allegation which put the CM’s “jihad on corruption” on its first acid test, however, ended up restoring his credibility after he forced Sayeed to resign.

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