The Omar Abdullah government has removed influential BJP leader Hina Shafi Bhat from the Khadi and Village Board (KVIB) chair, taking a rare leap towards asserting its authority ahead of completing 100 days in office.

"In supersession of all previous orders issued on the subject, the board of directors of the J&K Khadi and Village Industries Board is reconstituted," the government order said.

The ruling National Conference took over the reins of the government on October 16, 2024. In addition to the KVIB, the government has re-constituted the board of directors of the Handicrafts and Handloom Corporation, Jammu and Kashmir Cements Limited, Jammu and Kashmir Industries Limited, Jammu and Kashmir Small Scale Industries Corporation Limited and the Jammu and Kashmir State Industrial Corporation Limited.

The government order said they would be headed by industries minister Surinder Kumar Choudhary, who is also the deputy chief minister.

Though the KVIB was headed by Bhat, the five other boards were headless after chairman Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, adviser to lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha, resigned last October after an elected government took over. The LG's administration appointed Bhat as the KVIB chairperson in January 2024 for two years. She had earlier served as the vice-chairperson of the board for around five years.

The administration had appointed BJP leaders Bhat and Darakshan Andrabi to two important boards in an alleged bid to help the party make an outreach to the masses. Andrabi heads the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board. The KVIB and the waqf are grassroots institutions in the Union Territory. The KVIB is tasked to encourage, organise, develop and regulate khadi and village industries while the other looks after waqf properties.

NC sources said the party had expected both the BJP leaders to resign on their own after the government formation but they chose to continue. "An impression was building that we are helpless and cannot even remove BJP leaders holding important positions in the government. There was a lot of pressure on us to assert ourselves. This is just the beginning," a source said.

Dentist-turned-politician Bhat, the daughter of former NC Srinagar MP Mohammad Shafi Bhat, joined the BJP in 2014 when the party had little presence in Kashmir. Though she fared miserably in the Assembly elections, she wielded considerable influence in the party and the government.