Raika Bandi Demolitions Put Omar Abdullah Under Fire
Iltija Mufti’s visit sharpened the row over Jammu demolitions, exposing NC’s limits in power and its clash with Raj Bhavan over forest land.
Iltija Mufti’s trip to Raika Bandi on Thursday turned a local eviction drive into a broader test of who really controls Jammu and Kashmir’s coercive machinery. The PDP leader blamed the National Conference government for the demolitions and accused the BJP of setting the tone, while affected Gujjar-Bakkarwal families remained in tents after the razing of more than 30 structures in the Sidhra/Raika Bandi area, according to 
Hindustan Times and 
The Hindu.
The real fight is over authority
The politics here is not simply about one demolition drive. It is about who can order force and who gets blamed for it. The NC-led elected government has tried to recast the issue as a protection-of-the-poor case, with the state cabinet announcing a fact-finding committee to examine possible Forest Rights Act violations, according to Hindustan Times. But the administration doing the actual enforcement sits with the lieutenant governor’s side of the system, and that lets the NC criticize the demolitions without fully controlling them.
That division matters. Javed Rana, the forest and tribal affairs minister, called the drive “targeted and cruel,” while Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary said the elected government lacked full control over senior officers, according to 
UNI. In other words, the NC is forced to absorb the political cost of an operation it does not fully command.
Iltija is attacking both the NC and BJP
Mufti’s move was tactically smart. She did not just defend the families; she made the demolitions a referendum on NC’s willingness to stand up to the BJP’s preferred governance style. As The Hindu reported, she argued that the BJP was effectively directing the NC on what to do, and that the poor were being targeted while powerful encroachers escaped scrutiny.
That line of attack serves two purposes. First, it pressures Omar Abdullah to prove that his government can protect marginalized communities, especially Gujjars and Bakkarwals, who are politically important in Jammu. Second, it gives the PDP a clean contrast: unlike the NC, it can claim to be outside the machinery that ordered the bulldozers. For the BJP, the upside is different: it can frame the issue as an anti-encroachment exercise and keep the law-and-order narrative alive, even if local backlash is steep.
What to watch next
The next decision point is the report from the two-member fact-finding panel, which Hindustan Times says is to examine alleged Forest Rights Act violations within seven days. If it finds procedural lapses, the NC will use that to demand a halt and rehabilitation. If it does not, the BJP and the lieutenant governor’s camp will argue the demolitions were lawful and necessary.
The other date that matters is Id on May 27. The families in Raika Bandi are already saying they will stay put in makeshift shelters, which means this is likely to remain a live political grievance, not a closed enforcement case.
