BJP-PDP talks break down; J&K stalemate continues

The prospect of government formation in Jammu and Kashmir seemed further weakened after the latest round of talks between People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Mehbooba Mufti and her ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed on Friday.

Mehbooba, who was in Delhi for the past few days, holding parleys with different BJP leaders including party chief Amit Shah, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the ruling party’s chief interlocutor on Kashmir Ram Madhav, returned to Srinagar without the much-anticipated meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Commenting on the situation, Madhav said, “There is no progress. As far as we are concerned there is no change in conditions that existed when Mufti Mohammed Sayeed Saheb was the Chief Minister.

“The only change is that Mufti Saheb is no longer there and it was for PDP to appoint a new leader and carry on.”

After Mufti’s meeting with Amit Shah on Thursday, the buzz in the BJP was that she was trying to “change goalposts” in the present agenda for alliance between the two partners. “The demands are unacceptable,” said the sources.

On the Mehbooba-Shah meeting, Madhav said, “There is no change in our stand. We have told them that a new government should be formed on the basis on conditions that existed earlier.” The PDP, with 27 MLAs, and BJP with 25 had formed an alliance on March 1, 2015 with Sayeed as Chief Minister. Both sides had formed an “Agenda of Alliance” which sought to address internal and external dimensions of the State.

But in the months following the demise of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, his heir apparent Mehbooba has dithered over assuming charge as the political cost of aligning with the BJP is apparently becoming too high.

The PDP is losing popular support in the Valley, not least because of the heightening of the nationalism debate by the BJP.

The recent targeting of Kashmiri students in Rajasthan on suspicions of eating beef, the slapping of sedition charges against JNU students for allegedly raising Azadi slogans and condemning Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s execution do not sit well with the PDP’s agenda in Kashmir.

Even though Mehbooba would ideally like to continue with her father’s agenda for alliance and form a government, the ideological impediments are becoming far too pronounced to ignore.

Even then, she would be willing to adjust her priorities if the BJP were to give her State-specific confidence-building measures (CBMs)’. She also wants a timeline from the BJP on their implementation.

Although the PDP has not specified exactly what CBMs she wants and the timeline, the assumption in political circles is that it is regarding political initiatives mentioned in the Agenda of Alliance, especially those regarding “examining the need for de-notifying ‘disturbed areas’ which, as a consequence, would enable the Union Government to take a final view on the continuation of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in these areas”.

Further, the PDP wants a commitment on thermal power stations in the State, which, they say, is not factored in in the financial package to the State.

The BJP, meanwhile, does not seem to want to bow to Mehbooba’s pressure tactics. Asked about the new demands put forward by the PDP chief, Madhav said: ”The first thing is that no new demand is acceptable to us and the second that if there are new demands then they can be taken up once a new government takes over...A government cannot be formed on the basis of conditions,” he said.

When asked if a new government will be formed, the BJP General Secretary said “I cannot say because the stalemate that existed earlier continues.”

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