Even within the PDP some of the leaders like former Finance Minister, Haseeb Drabu, and PDP MP, Muzafar Beigh, are seen to be close to RSS which fed the speculations that the PDP could well be on the way to split if Mehbooba shows reluctance to form government.
Fayaz Rasool
On January 31, 23-days after the death of former CM, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti, issued a statement which was read not only as strong political jibe on BJP but provided a sense that she would walk out from the alliance. Less than two months later on March 24 Mehbooba was nominated the chief ministerial candidate by her party and two days later on Saturday she staked the claim for government before Governor, N N Vohra.
Earlier after the January 31 meeting with senior leaders including MLAs and office bearers PDP refused to stake claim for government formation. The meeting had started in the morning and continued till late into the afternoon at Mufti’s Fairview, Gupkar residence without any conclusion about the formation of the government.
PDP issued a statement later that the party will take a call on government formation as and when “it is confident that the vision and mission of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed will be carried forward and implemented in letter and spirit.” PDP termed the decision of allying with BJP as an unpopular one.
“Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took a courageous, although unpopular decision of aligning with BJP with the hope that the Central Government headed by Narendra Modi will take decisive measures to address the core political and economic issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir and its people,” PDP President Mehbooba Mufti said at the January 31 meeting.
She said “ unfortunately, instead of partnering with and implementing Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s vision of bringing peace, stability and prosperity to Jammu and Kashmir, certain quarters, both within J&K and in New Delhi, started overtly and covertly triggering frequent controversies over avoidable contentious issues resulting in wastage of the state Government’s energies in fire fighting and propitiation. ’’ “In such volatile circumstances around, we will have to reassess whether we can absorb the shocks which Mufti Sahab had to do so frequently in his effort to forge reconciliation between the regions and the people of the State.” She added that Government of India (GoI) shall have to take substantive measures towards implementation of the PDP-BJP “Agenda of Alliance” in the interest of peace and stability in J&K and for this PDP needs a set timeframe to be worked out.
“The PDP will have to reassess whether the Central Government is ready to trust the people of Jammu and Kashmir and carry out implementation of ‘Agenda of Alliance’ with sincerity of purpose,” she said and added it has been made clear in the very preamble of the ‘Agenda of Alliance’ that the document is an effort to seek national reconciliation on J&K and facilitate formation of a coalition government in the State that will be empowered to catalyze reconciliation and confidence building process and create conditions to facilitate resolution of all issues of J&K. “We hope the Government of India will take concrete measures towards the implementation of Agenda of Alliance in the interest of peace and stability of the State and the region,” she said.
But while Mehbooba sounded like not in a mood to form the government, things took a dramatic turn after she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at New Delhi. She said that the meeting was positive and had received assurance over implementation of Agenda of Alliance. Only two days before, BJP had come down heavily on the PDP stating that no further concessions could be given by the party which could have dented its electoral prospectus elsewhere in India. Before Mehbooba met Prime Minister, Modi, BJP national general secretary, Ram Madhav, said that the Alliance Agenda would only be implemented in 6-year time.
Mehbooba’s anger was to some extent genuine since over the death of her father and serving Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed no top BJP leaders visited her residence including Prime minster as expected by the party.
“We were expecting at least Prime Minister, Narender Modi will visit the bereaved family but he didn’t turn up and on New Delhi airport he bid adieu his coffin,” said the senior party leader, wishing not to be named.
In fact, the PDP camp was already annoyed with the BJP after Prime Minster snubbed Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in a jam packed Sheri-e-Kashmir stadium when he suggested Modi for a dialogue with neighbouring country Pakistan over Kashmir imbroglio during his rally on November 7.
Mufti had personally supervised the arrangements for the visit of Prime Minster and reached out to the grassroots level workers to ensure maximum participation of people in his rally.
However, Modi had quickly retarded and said that he doesn’t need suggestions from anyone on Jammu and Kashmir. ‘
Now with BJP and PDP forming the government, Madahav’s assertion is being seen as the opposition by the RSS to the alliance even as NC had been stating that the PDP leaders have been putting their attendance at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur in Maharashtra.
Madhav rose from the RSS ranks and was widely seen to have been representing the opposition by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to the alliance with the PDP. Madhav, who had served as the RSS spokesman from 2003-2014, had been holding the talks with PDP leadership without any breakthrough.
Even speculations were fed that the PDP could well be on the way to split if Mehbooba shows reluctance to form government.
Although Madhav is believed to be the key person in striking deal with late Mufti Mohamamd Sayeed in 2014, this time pressure could be well gauged on BJP by his daughter Mehbooba who refused to settle disputes at party level resulting her two successive meetings with Prime minster with in a week’s time before forming the government.
After her meeting with PM, She said that it ended on a positive note and called the meeting of the party MLAs on 24 March in which she was elected as the Legislative party leader and the party’s CM candidate. “We were seeing a stalemate for the last two to three months over government formation, but today I am satisfied. I am very satisfied,” Mehbooba said after the 15-minute meeting with Narendra Modi. “When you meet the Prime Minister of the country, naturally the solution to the problems faced by the people of Jammu and Kashmir is clearer,” she said. The PDP president got the assurance from PM that the points in the Agenda of Alliance will be implemented.
But the delay in the government formation was not difficult to fathom. The political base of the PDP in Kashmir has eroded as not much has been done to implement the Agenda of Alliance. PDP sources said that it was premature to comment that whether the “Agenda of Alliance” could be implemented as there has not been much progress during the time of former chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, over it. PDP expects to recover the lost ground after the headway on the some key issues in the coalition agenda.
Mehbooba is learnt to have got the assurance from PM over the return of power projects in Uri and Dulhasti and the support for the flood-hit. Finance Minister, Arun Jaitely, had already assured that the BJP was committed to the implementation of Agenda of Alliance.
But in the past it has not only been lack of progress over alliance agenda, but the divergent views by the PDP and BJP that dragged the government formation. Both PDP and BJP in government adopted divergent views over some key policy issues.
The PDP was miffed with the lack of financial support given by the Central government to rehabilitate the flood-affected people. From the Rs 80,000 crore financial package that was announced by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during his visit last year on November 7 to Srinagar, only near Rs 3,000 crore was earmarked as a relief to the flood-affected people of Kashmir.
In September 2014, during the floods the loss to the public and private property was estimated at over Rs 1 lakh crore and even as the previous NC-Congress coalition headed by former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, had submitted a package of Rs 44,000 crore to the Central government for the rehabilitation of the flood affected people, the Niti Ayog had curtailed it down to meagre Rs 11,000 crore.
Some of the people whose houses were damaged had got the relief in few thousand rupees, though BJP had agreed that the Government of India (GoI) will “fully fund the rehabilitation and reconstruction plan.”
In the Alliance Agenda, the two parties had agreed that the “the present position of the special status in the constitution of India will be maintained’’, but BJP leaders often reiterated that temporary provision of Article 370 was debatable. Before it rose to power, the BJP had been seeking abrogation of the Article 370 that limits the powers of the parliament to make laws over Defence, Communication and External Affairs for Jammu and Kashmir. But in the coalition Agenda it agreed that this special status will be maintained.
Earlier after former CM, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, got the order issued by the General Administration Department (GAD), which he headed, that state flag shall be hoisted on official buildings and vehicles of constitutional authorities in adherence with the J and K Prevention of Insult to State Honour Act, 1979, the government had to withdraw the order after protests by BJP Ministers.
During over 9-months coalition rule both the parties failed to abide by the Alliance Agenda which PDP leaders believe has dented the electoral prospects of the party in Kashmir. There has been no progress over the withdrawal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that confers powers on the army to search the places without procuring a warrant from a Magistrate and even shoot at people on a mere suspicion of being militants.
It was earlier agreed that coalition government will examine the need for de-notifying ‘disturbed areas’ to enable the Central government to take a final view on the continuation of AFSPA.
Though the NDA government headed by former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had initiated a dialogue process with all political groups including the Hurriyat Conference but after the CM revoked the public safety act (PSA) against separatist leader and Muslim League Chairman, Masrat Alam, he was arrested few days later after people displayed Pakistani flags in a rally which he addressed in Srinagar. BJP had taken exception to his release due to which police had booked him for waging the war against the country and he was again slapped with the PSA.
Following the outcry by Congress over Alam’s release, Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, had stated in the Parliament that the Central government will not compromise with national security at any cost and for it “ any government, whether in alliance or not, is not the priority.”
In the Agenda of Alliance it was agreed that “coalition government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders which will include all political groups irrespective of their ideological views.’’ There has also been no forward movement over the transfer of Dulhasti and Uri hydro power projects to J&K from the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) to compensate the state for the use of its water resources by the power generation company.
It has been due to this that even as Mehbooba Mufti was visited by many BJP leaders she had been sulking. On the occasion of his January 10 visit to the Fairview residence of Mufti’s here, senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari had said that BJP will fulfill the dreams of former chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, about the development of Jammu and Kashmir.
Another senior BJP leader, meanwhile, told The Legitimate that any difference over the coalition agenda could have been sorted out with the PDP. “We had a steering committee in place which would have discussed any differences over the Agenda of Alliance.
It was the PDP which delayed the government formation and Mehbooba Mufti has only displayed her lack of political acumen in this.”
Similar views were echoed by former chief minister, Omar Abdullah who questioned Mehbooba Mufti’s decision to go ahead with the government formation in the state with the BJP after a hiatus of two-and-a-half months stating that PDP chief should reveal to the people as to why she had agreed for this without ‘getting anything from the Centre’.
“Yesterday Ram Madhav gave a statement that Mehbooba ji neither asked for anything nor did she get anything. She sought the Prime Minister’s blessing and he gave…We are surprised because for the last two and a half months we are being told that they would get something from Delhi. She had said that unless CBMs are implemented, she wouldn’t form the government. What happened today? She needs to answer to the people that what made her wait for all these days,” Abdullah had told the reporters after PDP agreed to re-stitch alliance with BJP.
“She kept us under the impression that she would ask for something from the Centre, like funds, or power projects, issue of AFSPA etc,” he added.
But at its party meeting on March 24, PDP vowed to work in co-ordination with BJP. After Mehbooba was elected unanimously as the leader of the Legislature Party, PDP issued a statement which also exhibited that former CM, Mufti Sayeed’s death, rather than splitting the party papered over the differences of its leaders.
Party MP, Tariq Hameed Karra, who had been against the PDP-BJP alliance, was also present in the meeting where Mehooba was elected as the Legislative party leader. The PDP statement after the meeting read, “Besides all the 28 PDP MLAs, the meeting to elect Mehbooba Mufti as Legislative party leader was also attended by Independent MLA from Zanskar, Syed Bakar Ali Rizvi who pledged his support to Mehbooba Mufti. The proceedings of the legislature party meeting were initiated by senior PDP leader and Member Parliament, Muzaffar Hussain Beig while another senior leader and Member Parliament, Tariq Hameed Karra also addressed the meeting.
Senior party leader and legislator, Abdul Rehman Veeri proposed the name of Mehbooba Mufti as the legislature party leader and chief ministerial nominee while another senior leader and legislator Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari seconded it. The Chairman Legislative Council, Haji Anayat Ali, the party’s Rajya Sabha members, Nazir Ahmad Laway and Fayaz Ahmad Mir and the members of the Legislative Council were also present at the meeting. Former Minister and party spokesman, Nayeem Akhtar said, “Following the nomination of Mehbooba Mufti as the PDP Legislature Party leader and the chief ministerial candidate, further constitutional requirement and the process for the government formation would be taken to the logical conclusion in consultation and coordination with the coalition partner BJP.” Mehbooba invoked Mufti’s vision to work for the equitable development of all the three region of the state to extend the support to the BJP. Akhtar said, “ Mehbooba ji asked party leaders and legislators and urged them to rededicate themselves to accomplish the mission and vision of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and work towards implementation of the ‘Agenda of Alliance’ formulated with BJP.’’
But whether or not the PDP-BJP alliance would be able to implement the agenda of alliance, Mehbooba’s meeting with the PM Modi at the latter’s official 7, Race Course Road (RCR) residence in the capital ensured that the months of political uncertainty in the state ended. Jammu and Kashmir was placed under Governor’s rule on January 8 after Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s passed away on January 7.
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The story first appeared in print edition on March 30, 2016
