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| PDP violating Coalition Dharma? | | | Hari Om
The people of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) gave a fractured verdict in the November-December 2014 Assembly elections. The ruling National Conference (NC) and the Congress, which contested the elections separately, won 18 and 11 seats, respectively, in the 87-member Legislative Assembly. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which represented mutually exclusive ideologies and programmes, won 28 and 26 seats, respectively. The BJP's pre-poll ally in Kashmir the People's Conference (PC) also won two seats from Kashmir. The PDP won 25 seats in Kashmir and three in Jammu province and the BJP won all the 26 seats from Jammu. In other words, both the PDP and the BJP won an equal number of seats.
Immediately after the declaration of election results, the NC, the Congress and three independent Kashmiri MLAs offered "unconditional" support to the PDP to keep the BJP out of government, but the PDP leadership rejected the offers. Instead, it forged an alliance with the BJP after two-month-long tortuous negotiations. The PDP leadership said that it entered into an alliance with the BJP for achieving "a bigger objective". It didn't explain as to what exactly it meant by the bigger objective.
It was on February 25, 2015 that BJP national president Amit Shah announced at his Delhi residence that the BJP and the PDP had stitched an alliance and it will form government in J&K in the next few days. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti was present when the BJP president made what he called a "historic announcement". He also announced that the PDP-BJP agenda of alliance will be made public in Jammu after the newly-formed coalition assumed office. The coalition government took oath of office in Jammu on March 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many top BJP leaders were present at the oath taking ceremony. The PDP got the office of Chief Minister for a full term of six years and also got 12 berths in the 17-member Cabinet. The BJP got the office of Deputy Chief Minister and five berths in the Cabinet. One of the five berths out of the BJP quota went to chairman of the PC and MLA Sajjad Lone. The PDP, in fact, got the lion's share. The BJP leadership was so magnanimous.
The BJP leadership had then expressed the hope that the PDP and the BJP would work in tandem for providing a stable government. It also said that the PDP-BJP coalition would undo the wrongs committed by the previous NC-Congress coalition government, ensure all-round development of the state and base its policies on the principle of justice and equity considering the nature of the mandate and the fact that J&K consisted of three disparate regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The PDP-BJP coalition government will regenerate the socio-economic and political life of the people of the state, end inter-regional and inter-communal animosities and forge a lasting peace in the disturbed and separatist-infested Kashmir was what the BJP leadership gave the people to understand.
However, the manner in which the PDP has conducted itself during the past seven months has belied all the BJP hopes. It has created an awkward situation for the BJP in its communal bid to cater to the Valley sentiments. It behaved as if it was running one-party government. It embarrassed the BJP leadership the very day Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took oath of office. He credited Pakistan, terrorists and separatists for the smooth conduct of the Assembly elections - a senseless declaration that triggered a fierce debate all across the nation for obvious reasons. His statement had an adverse impact on the political situation in the already restive Kashmir. Exploiting the statement, Pakistani agents like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik gave an impetus to the anti-India activities all across the Valley. In the anti-India rallies that they organised, waving of Pakistani and ISIS flags was a routine affair. Helpless and tightly-controlled as the state's law and order machinery was, it allowed the situation to deteriorate with each passing moment.
The embarrassed BJP leadership did try to make the PDP leadership act as it also controlled the all-powerful Home department, but with no result. It ignored all the pleas of the BJP and its timely suggestions. The dangerous fallout of the PDP policy towards the anti-nationals, including the Pakistani agents, is there for everyone to see. The situation has assumed alarming proportions and even the parties like the Congress have said that the situation in Kashmir was never so bad as it turned after the PDP occupied the driving seat in the sensitive border state. Besides adopting a weak-kneed approach towards secessionists and regressive forces in the Valley, the PDP also took several other decisions and implemented each one of them ruthlessly much to the chagrin of the BJP and its core constituencies in Jammu region and Ladakh. The PDP knew that the BJP had all along fought for the citizenship rights for the refugees from West Pakistan and also sought the people's mandate from Jammu on the plank that it, if voted to power, shall issue Dogra certificates to the Dogra youth desirous of seeking employment in the central paramilitary forces, including CRPF and BSF, but the PDP ministers took decisions against the refugees and Dogra youth, thus creating a precarious situation for the BJP in Jammu region. The PDP also knew that making Urdu compulsory for the naib tehsildars' written test and imposition of 12.5 per cent service tax on heli-tickets for the holy shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi would hurt the BJP and the Hindu community, but the PDP-controlled Revenue Ministry and Finance Ministry strictly enforced their decisions. In between, Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed further embarrassed the BJP by making a statement in Jammu itself in the presence of BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh that All-India Institute of Medical Sciences will be established in Kashmir, instead of Jammu, and the ongoing artificial lake project in Jammu would be shelved for financial and technical reasons. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced AIIMS for Jammu during his budget speech in the Lok Sabha on February 28.
As if all this was not enough, the PDP-controlled Law Ministry unceremoniously removed Additional Advocate General, Jammu, and Deputy Advocate General, Jammu, on September 22. Both of them had been appointed on the recommendation of the BJP. Their crime was that they defended in the J&K Kashmir High Court the laws which banned cow slaughter, sale of beef and beef eating in J&K in 1932. The High Court appreciated their stand and on September 8, issued directions to the concerned authorities to enforce strictly ban on cow killing and beef eating and take action against those who would violate the law. The decision of the Law Ministry to act against these two law officers and the announcement by one of the PDP ministers that it supported the demand seeking lifting of ban on cow killing and beef eating as not to do so would be to interfere in the religious affairs of the Muslim community. And, on September 28, Law Minister Basharat Bukhari declared that he will prefer to resign than succumbing to any pressure on the issue of reinstating the services of two sacked lawyers. "I will not succumb to pressure. Rather I will prefer to resign," he said. The BJP wants these two law officers to be taken back.
But these constitute only a few of the several such instances which suggest that the pro-self-rule PDP has been violating the coalition dharma to hurt the BJP. These actions and decisions of the PDP have provoked a sort of revolt in Jammu. The people have been questioning the very association of the BJP with the PDP. They have been using all kinds of epithets and invectives against it and charging it with subverting the Jammu's mandate. The fact of the matter is that the PDP has been hurting the BJP and its interests. The demand in Jammu is that the BJP must review its ties with the PDP keeping in mind the national interest and the interest of its core constituency without harming the interests of Kashmir and Kashmiri people. It would be only desirable if the BJP high command appreciates the developing situation in Jammu region, which is known for its supreme sacrifices for defeating the Kashmir-sponsored break-India movements and protecting the national cause in the state.
--Courtesy: www.niticentral.com |
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