The three-year government in the state collapsed on Tuesday, 19 June after the BJP snapped ties with the PDP. The decision was announced by party general secretary Ram Madhav after BJP’s J&K lawmakers had a meeting with Amit Shah in Delhi.
Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti submitted her letter of resignation to the governor.
“Restoring peace in Kashmir and encouraging fast development in Jammu and Kashmir, these were the objectives with which we joined with the PDP,” Madhav said at a press conference. “We have taken a decision, it is untenable for BJP to continue in alliance with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, hence we are withdrawing.”
Madhav also said that the BJP will be pushing for governor’s rule in the state, as it feels like the Mehbooba Mufti government has let down the people. “Keeping national interest in mind and that Kashmir is an integral part of India, we have to say it is time that the reins of power in the state be handed over to the governor,” he said. “We are not questioning the intention of the government but it has failed to achieve the intended objectives in Kashmir valley.
We even appointed an interlocutor for the state to talk with all the stakeholders. The Central government has done whatever the state government sought.”
“Terrorism and radicalisation is on the rise in the state. The murder of editor Shujaat Bukhari shows even press freedom is in danger,” Madhav continued.
“This is a surprise for us because we did not have any indication about their decision,” PDP spokesperson Rafi Ahmad Mir told ANI.
The PDP holds 28 seats in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly, and BJP holds 25. The majority mark is 45 seats.
The two parties have had several differences in the recent past, most recently after the Centre did not extend the unilateral ceasefire it had called in the state during Ramzan. Mehbooba had asked for the ceasefire, and the state BJP had said that it did not support the idea.
Differences between the BJP and PDP had also boiled over when BJP MLAs joined a rally in support of the accused in the gangrape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu’s Kathua.
The parties have disagreed in the past on holding talks with separatists and removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
Jammu and Kashmir cannot be treated as “enemy territory,” Mehbooba Mufti said at a press conference after submitting her resignation from the post of J&K CM following the BJP’s move to pull out of the alliance on Tuesday.
Defending the move that will leave the state under Governor’s rule for the fourth time since 2008 and eight time since 1977. Governor Vohra in the evening forwarded his report to the President for imposition of President’s rule.
BJP-PDP ALLAINCE REVIEW
The collapse of the Bharatiya Janata Party-People’s Democratic Party (PDP) alliance following the BJP’s decision to pull out of the coalition government was not entirely unexpected.
The two were unlikely allies to start with – one a hard nationalist party and the other often termed “soft separatist” by the BJP during the 2014 election campaign for the state assembly – and the fact that the “Agenda for Alliance” they negotiated as the basic text of their government remained unimplemented was further proof of their incompatibility. And yet, we should be clear about one thing – the BJP’s decision to withdraw from the coalition, announced at a press conference by Ram Madhav on Tuesday afternoon – is nothing less than an abdication of political responsibility on the part of the party.
Since 2000, when by all accounts truly free and fair elections have taken place in the state, governments in Jammu and Kashmir have always been coalitions between New Delhi and Srinagar. This was the natural outcome of the security situation in the state, where the Union government wielded huge authority through the office of the governor and the central forces – the Army and the Central paramilitary forces (CPMFs).
Despite the Union government’s monofocal approach emphasising the unrelenting use of force and its refusal to make any significant political gesture towards resolving the political issues underlying the state’s problems, these coalitions had provided some sort of stability in the state.
The 2014 state assembly elections took place in the wake of the BJP’s spectacular performance in the Lok Sabha elections. Not surprisingly, the NC-Congress alliance had come apart before the elections. The BJP ran a hard campaign seeking to capitalise on its win in the Lok Sabha polls, terming its goal “Mission 44”, the number of seats needed to get a majority in the 87 member J&K Assembly.
The elections came up with surprises for everyone. What Mission 44 did was to push some boycotters to participate in the elections out of fear of the BJP. The result was higher polling percentages in the urban constituencies of the Valley which were prone to de facto boycotts. The overall turnout of 66% was the highest ever recorded.
The PDP, that had expected to come close to 35 or so, ended up with only 28. The BJP’s tally went up to 25, thanks to the Jammu region, largely at the expense of the Congress. The NC, which was expecting a washout, actually managed to get 15 seats and the Congress 12. Ironically, the Congress was the only party that won seats in the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh sub-regions of the state. While the BJP swept the Jammu region, it drew a blank in the Valley and Ladakh. On their part, the NC and PDP failed to get a presence south of the Pir Panjal.
Mufti Sayeed managed to make this unlikely coalition work for the 10 months that he was there as chief minister before he passed away in January 2016. His successor, Mehbooba Mufti, delayed her entry into office till April, in part because she was aware of the growing disquiet within PDP ranks relating to the coalition. The succeeding two years have seen the unravelling of the coalition as well as the coherence of the state government.
While Mehbooba must bear her share of the blame, the BJP’s failure has been in its refusal to treat the Kashmir problem as a political problem. From day one, its approach has been to treat it solely as a law and order issue. True, it put up former Intelligence Bureau director Dineshwar Sharma as an interlocutor, but he was saddled with so many qualifications that his task became meaningless. As for the Ramzan ceasefire, it was too short and too late.
Since the BJP runs the Union government at the Centre, it had a special responsibility for the state. For this reason, its participation in the coalition in Srinagar was a good thing. Now that it has pulled out, one this clear: From partial responsibility, the BJP now has full responsibility for the affairs of the state. But the big question here is: Does the party have anything more in mind than a straightforward military operation in the Valley? Or does it want to use Kashmir as part of its election strategy for the next Lok Sabha elections?
As things stand, the state could well be headed for an even greater tragedy than the one it has been afflicted by in the past 30 years.
