BJP patch-up may lead to dissent in PDP

Simmering discontent in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) over its allying with what is seen by many within the party as being anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri BJP has escalated into a virtual rebellion by a section of partymen after its president Mehbooba Mufti chose to cement rapprochement with the saffron party.

Ms Mufti has convened a meeting of the PDP’s Legislature Party which is expected to elect her as its leader on Thursday in the run-up to government formation by the alliance partners. As she would be discussing “threadbare” the outcome of her latest round of talks with the BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi earlier this week, apart from devising strategy for government formation, she has invited all senior functionaries of the party, including MPs and members of its extended core group, to the crucial meet.

But Tariq Hameed Karra, the PDP’s Lok Sabha member from Srinagar and the symbol of resentment against Ms Mufti’s penchant for the BJP, is reported to have expressed his inability to attend the meeting. If Ms Mufti goes ahead with cobbling up a government with the ideologically-divergent BJP, which from all available indications is inevitable now, Mr Karra may prefer to quit the party than becoming part of the dispensation which he has publicly termed as “disaster” in the past. Sources close to him said that he is expecting candid support from like-minded partymen, including a few legislators.

Mr Karra, the alienated founding member of the PDP, has repeatedly said that its tieup with the BJP has only proved detrimental to its (PDP’s) interests and halted its growth, particularly in the Kashmir Valley, and that the BJP has not respected the “Agenda of the Alliance”, the common minimum programme reached between the two sides for the government formation last year. He has also publicly termed the PDP-BJP coalition as a “failed experiment”. His argument has been that the core issues which have been the essence of the PDP’s existence like return of the power projects within the state being run by the NHPC, revocation of contentious APSPA and, above all, the self-rule agenda have been ignored by the party leadership.

He has openly asked the party leadership to snap its ties with the BJP “if you really want to protect the people of Kashmir”. He has chose to stay away from the PDP’s crucial meetings held in the recent past. Defending his decision not to involve himself with party’s pursuits, Mr Karra said recently that his stand is clear that until the PDP revisits its alliance with the BJP, he won’t attend any party meetings.

At a one-on-one meeting he had with Ms Mufti a couple of weeks after her father and former chief minister, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, died in a Delhi hospital on January 7, he had reportedly made a passionate appeal to the PDP president not to repeat the “mistake” by seeking to form the government with the saffron party again. “As his pleas have apparently fallen on deaf ears, it is about to give way to emergence of splinter group of the PDP,” the sources said, adding that if warranted, Mr Karra may not hesitate to quit the party. Some party leaders loyal to Ms Mufti are aware of it and are trying to persuade Mr Karra not to take his disillusionment that far.

Following Mufti’s death, his daughter and “natural successor”, Ms Mufti, was reluctant to form the new government with alliance partner BJP and had publicly asked for J&K-specific confidence-building-measures (CBMs) towards creating a congenial atmosphere for stepping into her father’s shows. Last week, her meeting with BJP president Amit Shah ended in a fiasco as the two sides failed to find a common ground on various issues. Mr Shah had told her a government can’t be formed on the basis of conditions. After that, both sides admitted that efforts to revive the coalition had hit a roadblock.

However, a joint effort put in by PDP and BJP negotiators paved the way for a broader reconciliation meeting between Ms Mufti and Mr Shah on Tuesday. Later she was invited by the Prime Minister for a one-on-one meeting as an affirmation of mutual understanding, seemingly ending the deadlock over government formation. Ms Mufti described her 30-minute-long meeting with Mr Modi as “very positive” and “good” in addressing issues pertaining to the people of the state.

But the BJP on Wednesday chose to charm its core constituency both within and outside Jammu and Kashmir but, at the same time, has put Ms Mufti and the PDP into an uncomfortable situation when its national general secretary Ram Madhav said that the saffron party has not accepted any new conditions from its alliance partner. He, once again, threw the ball in Ms Mufti’s court, saying her party has to make the next move for government formation in the state. He said, “We’ve not accepted any new condition from the PDP.”

This will only make those within the PDP stronger who are deadly against Ms Mufti’s renewed proclivity to the saffron party, say the Kashmir watchers. On the other hand, the BJP is also facing resentment in Jammu region from a section of the party rank and file which sees in the latest bonhomie bartering national interest “just for the sake of a few loaves and fishes of office”.