ET Report
JAMMU, Feb 26: It is not only RSS, which has questioned the credentials of the PDP. The BJP, its political organ, too has taken on the PDP.
The PDP's credentials have been questioned by BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra and that, too, publicly and without mincing words. Since it was Sambit Patra who has attacked the PDP, it is obviously the party's line. No spokesperson can express his/her personal opinion; he/she speaks only what he/she is asked to say to defend the party and articulate the party's view on the issues under discussion and public scrutiny.
That the BJP, like the RSS, has endorsed the view of its arch political rivals, including the Congress of Sonia Gandhi, the SP of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the CPI of D Raja, the CPI-M of Sitaram Yechuary, the JDU of Nitish Kumar, the RJD of Lalu Prasad Yadav, the BSP of Mayawati, the NCP of Sharad Pawar and so on, that the PDP is pro-Kashmir party. It, suggests that all is not well with the PDP-BJP coalition, if it at all is intact. Had things were moving in the right direction, the BJP would have snubbed its arch political rivals and defended its ties with the PDP.
Earlier, Sambit Patra had batted for one flag and one constitution and everyone in the State and rest of the country knows that PDP stands for the State's separate status and separate flag and separate constitution.
It appears that the BJP is under intense pressure to review its stand on J&K. Very significantly, the PDP leadership has not issued any political statement after February 21, the day party president Mehbooba Mufti declared that she could walk against the "tide" and "her father's legacy is so big that it can't fit in the Chief Minister's chair".
The statements of Sambit Patra and other BJP leaders, including BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, and silence on the part of the PDP only suggests that the coalition is in jeopardy.
In the meantime, Governor NN Vohra has started taking decisions on important issues, which further suggest that the gap between the two parties is widening and there is little or no possibility of the PDP re-joining hands with the BJP. |
