NC Government Fails Again to Reinstate Sheikh Abdullah Birth Anniversary Holiday
Two years running, National Conference fails to honour its own founder.
For the second consecutive year, the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference government in Jammu and Kashmir has failed to restore the public holiday on December 5, the birth anniversary of party founder and iconic leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, popularly known as Sher-e-Kashmir. The inability to reinstate the gazetted holiday, which was scrapped in 2020 following the abrogation of Article 370, has exposed the limited powers of the elected government in the Union Territory.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, born on December 5, 1905, in Srinagar’s Soura area, served as Prime Minister and later Chief Minister of the erstwhile state. Until 2019, his birth anniversary was marked one of the most significant public holidays in Jammu and Kashmir, with the National Conference traditionally organising large political rallies and unveiling its annual agenda at his mausoleum. The holiday was abruptly cancelled by the Lieutenant Governor’s administration in 2020 after the Centre reorganised the state into two Union Territories.
Despite returning to power with a comfortable majority in the October 2024 Assembly elections, the Omar Abdullah government remains unable to reverse the decision. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah openly acknowledged that the authority to declare public holidays rests exclusively with the Centre and the Lieutenant Governor, not the elected government. “This is precisely why we continue to demand immediate restoration of statehood—so that an elected government can take even small decisions independently,” he stated.
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National Conference spokesman and MLA Tanvir Sadiq termed the continued denial “very unfortunate” and blamed the prevailing dual power structure between Raj Bhavan and the elected dispensation. Senior party leaders, including Omar Abdullah and his father, NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah, visited Sheikh Abdullah’s grave at Hazratbal on Thursday to pay tributes and addressed a party function, but the absence of an official holiday underscored the diminished authority of the government they lead.
The episode has reignited demands within the National Conference and allied parties for full restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, with leaders asserting that symbolic decisions honouring the region’s political legacy should not remain hostage to central approval. As the party commemorates its founder’s 120th birth anniversary, the missing public holiday stands as a stark reminder of the constraints still imposed on the Union Territory’s elected representatives.
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