It was anguish and bereavement at “Fairview”, the official residence of former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, until a week ago when hordes of his partymen, supporters and admirers would turn up all day to share the grief of the family.
Though there is now relative quiet at the villa, life will not be the same for the family without him. Particularly his daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, has yet to come to terms with “the most poignant loss” and, in fact, continues to be in deep and inconsolable grief, sources said.
Tassaduq Hussain, Mufti Sayeed’s cinematographer son and the only male in four children, has since returned to Mumbai to complete an assignment. But he has promised his sister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti that he will return to Srinagar soon to supplement her efforts to carry their father’s “mission” forward.
The 44-year-old Hussain is likely to be assigned “immense responsibility” and given important party work in the PDP as well after he formally announces that he will join active politics, which may be sooner rather than later. Several senior party leaders, too, have gone down to Jammu or relocated to Delhi, mainly to escape the Valley’s subzero temperatures. But they too have assured her that they would be around when needed or called.
Party sources said Ms Mufti is waiting for certain clear-cut assurances from the BJP leadership and the government at the highest level on the future relationship between the two sides, and also on Centre-State dealings, mainly on the economic front, before moving forward on the issue of government formation.
She has convened a meeting of senior party leaders and district and zonal heads at her residence on January 31 to receive “feedback” on important issues, including government formation. “In spite of not being emotionally ready to take up the issues the way she used to during Mufti Sahib’s lifetime, she has had consultations with senior party colleagues on party matters and government formation,” said a senior PDP leader. One such one-on-one meeting was with Tariq Hameed Karra, the alienated PDP Lok Sabha member from Srinagar who has repeatedly said its tie-up with ideologically-divergent BJP has only proved detrimental to its (PDP’s) interests, and that the BJP has not respected the “Agenda of the Alliance”.
Similar views have been expressed by some other PDP leaders and legislators and, in fact, there is a strong line of thinking in the rank and file that it should look for alternatives regarding government formation.
