Mehbooba calls MLAs to discuss future of ties with BJP

The fate of the BJP-PDP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir may be known on Monday as PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti talks tough.
Mukhtar Ahmad/Rediff.com reports from Srinagar.

A day after she set out conditions for government formation with alliance partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in Jammu and Kashmir, Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti has convened a meeting of PDP legislators on Monday afternoon.

A senior PDP leader told Rediff.com that Mehbooba will meet the MLAs at her home and seek their opinion on government formation and the PDP stand on the matter.

Addressing a meeting of PDP leaders, legislators and office-bearers in Srinagar on Sunday, January 31, Mehbooba made it clear that though she is not averse to government formation, she wants a firm assurance from the BJP about realising her late father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's dream about the state.

'Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took a courageous, although unpopular, decision of aligning with the 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,' Mehbooba told the PDP meeting on Sunday.

Unfortunately, she added, instead of partnering with and implementing the late chief minister's vision of bringing peace, stability and prosperity to the state, certain quarters, both within the state 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 violative circumstances around, we will have to reassess whether we can absorb the shocks which Muftisahab had to do so frequently in his effort to forge reconciliation between the regions and the people of the state,' she said.

'The PDP can't form a government just for the sake of power but if it does it will be, as envisioned by Muftisahab, with the objective of addressing the core political and economic issues confronting Jammu and Kashmir as was done by the PDP-led government between 2002 and 2005,' she added.

The Centre, she said, shall have to take substantive measures towards implementation of the PDP-BJP 'Agenda of Alliance' in the interest of peace and stability in Jammu and Kashmir and for this the PDP needs a set time frame 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 the implementation of 'Agenda of Alliance' with sincerity of purpose,' Mehbooba said.

'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 Jammu and Kashmir and facilitate the formation of a coalition government in the state that will be empowered to catalyse reconciliation and confidence building process and create conditions to facilitate resolution of all issues,' she added.

Sources in Srinagar said the PDP's stand could further delay the formation of a new government in the state.

'If the PDP wants assurances from the BJP about the 'Agenda of the Alliance' now, what was Muftisahab doing for the last ten months while every single political and developmental promise in the common minimum programme was flouted and broken by both parties in carefully cinematographed fixed matches?' the Opposition National Conference asked.

'A continued delay in government formation has put Jammu and Kashmir in a precarious Constitutional situation where two legislative parties continue to be in an alliance with adequate numbers, but are still adamant to rob the people of their Constitutional right to a have an elected government,' the National Conference said in a statement.