India, Oct. 29 -- All is not well in the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC). On Tuesday, the long-awaited expansion of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's Council of Ministers exposed deep internal fault lines. At least 11 legislators (including some Independents) skipped the oath ceremony in Srinagar, raising many an eyebrow in the audience.

Instead of presenting the new team and the united picture, the party leadership went into a damage-control huddle. The scale of resentment stunned the top brass.

Dr Bashir Ahmad Veeri (Bijbehara), Nazir Ahmad Gurezi (Gurez), Javed Ahmad Mirchal (Karnah), Mian Meher Ali (Kangan), Muzaffar Iqbal Khan (Thannamandi), Javed Iqbal Choudhary (Budhal), Engineer Khurshid Ahmad (Gulabgarh), Aijaz Ahmad ...