PDP-BJP Alliance Could Create Dangerous Vacuum (Nazir Masoodi is NDTVs Srinagar Bureau Chief) It has been 11 days since the results of Jammu and Kashmirs election were declared. Without a decisive mandate, parties are still busy talking to each other about possible combinations to form a government. The PDP, headed by Mufti Mohammmad Sayeed won the most seats, and therefore its options are abundant, but each potential alliance is weighed down by problems. Though the party made its choice obvious - it strongly suggested it wants to partner with the BJP - the unconditional support offered by the Congress and Omar Abdullahs National Conference has actually put roadblocks in the PDPs preferred route. The PDP has said it would like an agreement with the BJP if it follows the line taken by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had supported the PDP agenda, which was seen as pro separatists, at least in tone and tenor. In an 87-member assembly, PDPs tally is 28 - its best ever performance since the party was launched 15 years ago. The BJP has won 25 seats, mainly from Jammus Hindu heartland. On the face of it, the alliance between these two parties seems to be the only way out, not just to represent the people divided along communal and regional lines, but also to ensure a numerically-strong and stable government that enjoys a strong backing from a friendly Centre. Such an alliance becomes especially crucial because of the mammoth task ahead for the state government in reconstructing Srinagar and other parts that were hit with pulverizing force by floods in September. Theres also the urgent need to check growing unemployment, which will depend heavily on generous assistance for the cash-starved state from Prime Minister Modis government. But a PDP-BJP alliance could create a dangerous political vacuum in the Kashmir valley and the Muslim-majority parts of Jammu. Here is why. In 1999, the PDP was formed in the wake of a perceived anti-Kashmiri policy practiced by the Farooq Abdullah government in the state. Human rights violations had crossed all limits as the infamous Special Task Force and other security agencies were given a free hand to unleash brutalities on common people. People were looking for an alternative to the National Conference and even after an extensive campaign centered on soft separatist rhetoric by PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, there was hardly anyone who expected that this newly-formed party could dethrone the mighty NC. Days before the results of the election in 2002, PDP patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed told me that the PDP could win three to four seats. The 16-seat victory came as a windfall and the defeat of Omar Abdullah from his family bastion Ganderbal was not just a rejection of Abdullah family, breaking the unquestioned monopoly of NC over power politics in Kashmir, but it also sent a strong message that people are yearning for change. This legitimized the PDPs claim to form the government in coalition with the Congress. Interestingly, the Abdullahs NC was still the single-largest party in the house. Muftis controversial words that militants dont need guns anymore because their representatives are now in the assembly still reverberates in the ears of those who wanted a dignified exit from the militant movement and sought to join the mainstream without completely divorcing the separatist discourse in Kashmir. The PDP doesnt attempt to disguise that its symbolism and rhetoric echo a soft separatist sentiment. The party flag is borrowed from the erstwhile Muslim United Front or MUF, an amalgam of Kashmiri groups that lost the 1987 elections to the Abdullah-Congress alliance in a widely-believed rigged poll that is believed to be a trigger for the subsequent outbreak of militancy. The MUF became the Hurriyat Conference later. The PDP didnt miss a single chance to accuse the National Conference of pushing MUF candidate Mohammad Yousuf Shah into militancy because he lost hope in
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 15:44:45 +0000
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