3 min readJammuMar 27, 2026 12:41 PM IST
The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly on Friday resumed for the second half of its Budget session on a tumultuous note following a nearly month-long break.
Speaker A R Rather adjourned the House for half an hour after members on both the Treasury and Opposition benches raised slogans on different issues.
At the start of the day’s proceedings, the members on both benches stood up. While the National Conference’s Tanvir Sadiq displayed a photograph of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatullah Khamenei to express solidarity with the West Asian country amid the ongoing war, BJP members displayed placards demanding a National Law University in Jammu. However, Speaker Rather was able to persuade both sides to maintain calm, promising that he would give them time to raise the issues after Question Hour.
However, when Question Hour started, and Health Minister Sakeena Itoo started replying to the first question by BJP’s Yudvir Sethi, the latter’s party colleagues in the House stood up on their seats, raising slogans demanding the establishment of NLU in Jammu.
Subsequently, members on the Treasury benches, as well as the non-BJP members of the Opposition, also stood up and raised their own slogans — mainly against Israel and the US for attacking Iran. Tanvir Sadiq was seen in black headgear and clothes, displaying the photograph of Ayatullah Khamenei.
BJP members, too, displayed placards depicting a map of J&K with NLU written on it.
Slogans from ‘Vande Mataram’ to ‘Israel murdabad’ echoed from either side of the aisle as the House descended into chaos.
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At around 10.30 am, the Speaker adjourned the House for half an hour.
Outside the Assembly, police personnel were deployed in strength on roads leading to the civil secretariat in view of the Secretariat Chalo call by the BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, to press the demand for the NLU.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has maintained that the location of the proposed NLU is undecided as of now, asking for the issue “not to be politicised”.
“When Jammu got IIT and the IIM, what did Kashmir get at that time? Why did you people not talk about equality then, saying one should be opened in Jammu and the other in Kashmir?” he asked, without specifically naming whom he was referring to.
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The NLU issue could snowball into a new flashpoint after the row over the admission of Kashmiri Muslim students into an MBBS course run by Shri Mata Vaishnodevi Institute of Medical Excellence. In the aftermath, the National Medical Commission — India’s apex medical education regulator — withdrew the Letter of Permission (LoP) it had issued to the institution, effectively shutting down the MBBS course.
