Srinagar: With an eye on the general elections and an assessment that the party’s image has suffered from “sacrificing” its ideology by continuing to support Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday walked out of an alliance with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to bring a premature end to the state government.
The party had been weighing its options for “quite some time”, according to a top BJP functionary in New Delhi. But failure of the Ramzan ceasefire, the outright rejection of dialogue by the Hurriyat leadership and “continued deterioration” in the security scenario in the Valley had led to growing unease within its ranks.
“It had not only become untenable but intolerable to continue in the alliance, and before it could have become impossible to undo the damage we decided to call it a day in national interest,” the leader summed up the party’s decision to end the three-year-old alliance with the PDP.
The big poll factor
The BJP was increasingly feeling that ahead of the parliamentary polls, an atmosphere was building against it in Jammu and across the country for yielding to the PDP’s “soft separatism and Kashmir-centric politics”, the BJP leader said.
Though the polls are scheduled in April-May next year, it is possible that the Centre will pull the plug and bring forward the exercise to this year end.
“The insistence of PDP for extension of suspension of (anti-militancy) operations and soft approach towards militants, Pakistan and separatists were hurting nationalistic sentiments across country,” state BJP chief spokesperson Sunil Sethi said, adding the PDP had underestimated BJP’s resolve, thinking it would always have its ways in all matters.
Former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta, who attended the meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday chaired by national party president Amit Shah, clearly acknowledged that elections were the focus of the deliberations and outweighed the need to save the alliance.
“Yes, the meeting decided that continuing in the alliance (with the PDP) would hurt the party’s chances in (the general) elections. We are gearing up to repeat our performance in the upcoming elections and don’t want to be seen doing anything that could end up harming us badly,” Gupta said.
Prior to the meeting, the leaders from Jammu had cautioned the party leadership in New Delhi at least on four occasions about the erosion in its support base and shrinking political space in the region post the Kathua gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl and the developments that followed.
The tough stand taken by the chief minister on the gruesome incident had seen BJP dropping two of its ministers, who had attended a rally in support of the rape and murder accused, from the cabinet. This had not gone down well with BJP supporters in Jammu.
Another worry for the party was the lack of headway on key Jammu-centric issues, including permanent rehabilitation of West Pakistan refugees and refugees from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which formed part of agenda of alliance between two parties.
‘Worrisome security scenario’
Despite the Centre’s iron-fist policy in Kashmir, the phenomena of local youth joining rebel groups has seen no end after 2016, when Kashmir witnessed a five-month-long uprising. On other hand, the number of civilian fatalities in clashes between government forces and protestors continued to rise with each passing day, with people even putting their lives at risk to try and save militants trapped in gunfights.
While the J&K Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a human rights group, in its annual report has put the total number of killings in 2016 at 383 including 145 civilians, 138 militants and 100 security forces, the next year witnessed around 387 causalities. These included 207 militants, 93 forces personnel and 87 civilians. In the first five months of this year, more than 138 persons, including 67 militants, 41 civilians and 31 security personnel, have lost their lives in militancy-related incidents.
The rise in violence is seen as an outcome of New Delhi’s inconsistent Kashmir policy on the political front, despite the fact that talks with separatists and Pakistan were among the key components in the agenda of the PDP-BJP alliance.
The state BJP leader acknowledged that the security situation was “worrisome” as he referred to the killing of senior journalist and editor-in-chief of Rising Kashmir Shujaat Bukhari and growing attacks on security forces in the last two months.
In his press conference soon after Mehbooba submitted her resignation to the governor N.N. Vohra, former chief minister Omar Abdullah also talked about the situation in the Valley, which according to him could have been one of the reasons for BJP’s pullout. But he was quick to blame the BJP as well for the prevailing situation.
“If the situation has reached at the point where we are all suffering then obviously they both (PDP and BJP) are responsible,” Omar said.
But many believe that the BJP may justify its decision by portraying that it couldn’t do much on the security front due to non-cooperation from the PDP, which was the major partner in the alliance, in order to defend itself within its core constituency across country.
Out-going Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti addressing a press conference in Srinagar, on Tuesday 19, 2018. Credit: PTI/ S. Irfan
The poles that ‘never met’
When the PDP and BJP stitched the alliance together in March 2015, former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed had described the coalition as the coming together of the North Pole and South Pole.
But from very beginning, the two partners had fundamental ideological differences on issues ranging from the state’s special identity and the larger Kashmir issue. These differences continued even when Mehbooba took over reins of the state in April 2016, ultimately tearing apart the alliance.
“They (PDP) grossly underestimate the capacity of BJP. While it was all focused on demand for extension of ceasefire and talks with separatist and Pakistan, the BJP was preparing to give it a final political blow,” said political analyst Noor M. Baba, adding the PDP was now struggling for an explanation on being “dumped” by the BJP.
According to him, the BJP decision was “very calculated” ,for the party would have wanted to have adequate time before the Lok Sabha polls and elections in some other states to sell the move as a “sacrifice for national interest”.
At least four states – Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan – are going to the polls between December this year and January 2019. While the BJP is in power in three of these states, it has been losing popularity among voters and some allies have already left it different states.
“The national parties have often used Kashmir as a laboratory to see through their experiments at larger level. And this seems one such move wherein the BJP would now try to cash in on its divorce to PDP for the so called nationalistic cause,” said Baba.
An all-out attack
Once the BJP announced its decision from New Delhi, there was criticism from opposition parties against the previous allies, particularly the PDP, for “disastrous” rule in J&K.
Omar made Mehbooba the target of his attack, saying he had been asking her to quit the alliance for more than a year now. “I wish she had gone with some dignity intact… rather than being shunted out like this. She chose to be dismissed rather than leave with some dignity intact,” Omar responded to a question.
For senior Congress leader Saifuddin Soz, the break in the PDP-BJP alliance was an end to the “most unpopular government, much to the relief of people”.
He said forging an alliance with the BJP was “political blunder” by Mufti and its acceptance later by Mehbooba as a “legacy was certainly a disastrous decision”.
While Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader M.Y. Tarigami said both the PDP and BJP were answerable to the people for sending the state into a “deep crisis”, his attack was more focused on the BJP.
“The decision of the BJP to withdraw from the coalition is fraught with danger of creating greater political instability in J&K and signifies total political failure of party’s approach towards the state,” the leftist leader said, adding the BJP was equally responsible for contributing to the prevailing situation in the state.
“This alliance ended only after deepening polarisation between Jammu and Kashmir regions and different communities,” he said.
But senior PDP leader Naem Akhter put the entire blame on the BJP, saying the party has proved that it is New Delhi which “betrays” Kashmir and not the other way around.
“There was a perception that Kashmir betrays Delhi today it has been proven it is Delhi which betrays Kashmir. We were already facing difficulties in bringing North Poles close to South Poles…BJP took the decision to end alliance for securing its interests for Lok Sabha elections,” said Akhter.
Mudasir Ahmad is a Srinagar-based reporter.