Early Times Report
jammu, Nov 13: The ignominious defeat of the BJP in the just-held assembly elections in Bihar has, it seems, emboldened the out-of-power National Conference and Congress. The leadership of both the parties, which is essentially communal and sectarian and which doesn't look beyond the small Kashmir Valley, have welcomed the BJP's defeat and warned Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed that his failure to appreciate the Bihar result would further alienate the Kashmiri Muslims, who, according to them, are fed up with the dispensation in which the RSS-BJP combine has a say. They have indirectly asked the Chief Minister to form a "secular" government in the state that keeps the people of Jammu province at bay. By "secular" government, they obviously means a theocratic regime in which the minorities will have no say whatever in the governance.
NC working president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is known more for his tweets than anything else, had offered unconditional support to the PDP in February last and urged the Muftis not to form coalition government with the "anti-Kashmir" and anti-Muslim BJP, but Mufti Sayeed rejected the offer, saying it would be dangerous if Jammu was excluded from the power structure. The people of Jammu had given mandate to the BJP and the people of Kashmir to PDP and, hence, it was necessary to form government with the BJP to keep the state intact, the Mufti had said.
Mufti Sayeed had taken similar stand on the "grand alliance" suggestion given by Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and former J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to keep the BJP out of power in the state. Azad had, in fact, asked Mufti Sayeed to form grand alliance with the Congress and the NC and other independent MLAs from Kashmir.
A day after the BJP suffered defeat in Bihar, JKPCC chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir again talked about grand alliance and virtually advised Mufti Sayeed to join hands with "secular" Congress like the Janata Dal United and Rashtriya Janata Dal did in Bihar to ensure the defeat of the BJP.
The fact of the matter is that the defeat of the BJP in Bihar has helped the NC and the Congress unleash a movement in the state calculated to ensure the collapse of the PDP-BJP alliance and form a PDP-NC-Congress "secular" government. Very significantly, two founder members of the PDP and presently Members of Parliament, Muzafffar Hussain Beigh and Tariq hameed Karra, have also upped their ante against the PDP-BJP alliance, saying that it had failed to deliver on any front and that the PDP will get decimated if continued to work with the BJP any longer. |
