SRINAGAR: A day after the Centre amended the new domicile order, reserving all groups of jobs, both in non-gazetted and gazetted services, for the residents of the UT of J&K, the newly formed J&K Apni Party (JKAP) on Saturday welcomed the move. All other mainstream political parties, including National Conference and People’s Conference, however, expressed reservations over the development and demanded complete rollback of the revised domicile order that was notified on March 31.

Even though JKAP welcomed the move, its president Altaf Bukhari pledged to continue efforts to get the new law revisited in its entirety to remove the remaining loopholes till it satisfied the aspirations of the people of J&K.

Bukhari extended his gratitude to Union home minster Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval for ensuring the amendments to the already-notified order.

On the other hand, NC provincial president Devender Singh Rana sought exclusive rights over government jobs in J&K for the permanent residents as per the law enacted by Maharaja Hari Singh in 1927, saying they should be granted the status of “Class One Domicile” in the new domicile law.

On his part, PC spokesman Junaid Mattu, while reacting to the amendments, said that the reality of domicile was that “it was changed unrecognizably and remains unrecognizable and unguarded”.

