Mehbooba meets BJP leaders, fuels hopes of revival

The PDP chief visited New Delhi on Monday and has reportedly called a meeting of party legislators to brief them about her talks with BJP leaders.

The sudden visit of Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti to New Delhi on Monday has fuelled fresh speculations of a possible patch-up between her party and the Bharatiya Janata Party for government formation in Jammu and Kashmir. 

The BJP on Sunday said it was fully committed to the agenda of governance in the state. Mehbooba has had several meetings with top leaders of the BJP, like party president Amit Shah and general secretary and party in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir Ram Madhav, but the meetings ended in a stalemate, with the BJP saying a government cannot be formed with preconditions. 

A senior leader of the PDP had said that they had not put any conditions but wanted the Centre to come up with some confidence building measures for government formation in the state, which has been under governor’s rule since the demise of former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 9. 

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said that the BJP was ‘fully committed to the agenda of governance that was formed in Jammu and Kashmir’. 

There have been reports that Mehbooba has called a meeting of PDP legislators and leaders to inform them of her confabulations with the top BJP leadership in New Delhi for the formation of a government in the state.