STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: With each passing day it is becoming clearer that the BJP central leadership is deliberately pushing PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti to the wall to salvage its lost pride ahead of the crucial Assembly polls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam,Kerala and Pondicherry. It is for this reason the much awaited meeting between Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not been fructified. Besides this, the central party leaders also avoided holding fresh parleys with the PDP emissaries to bridge the gap and restart the stalled dialogue process to redraw the contours of the Agenda of Alliance. Political observers, tracking the political developments in the State, claimed after dropping clear hints of government formation in the State PDP Chief was looking for favourable response from the central leadership but so far she has not received any intimation from the Centre.
Long delay caused in government formation has also created piquant situation for the PDP leaders in the State as opposition parties National Conference and Congress have been holding it responsible for pushing the State under the direct rule of RSS. The saffron party had also recently invited wrath of various political parties in the wake of JNU controversy. The allegations BJP leaders faced were if BJP was okay with PDP why it was cracking whip in the JNU campus and booking students under the charges of sedition. To wash its sins the Central BJP leadership has decided to keep the PDP on hold for the time being even though the dead line of holding Assembly session before April 9 is nearing. Before the beginning of the Budget session of the Parliament it was widely believed that the top brass of the BJP and PDP would be able to bridge the gap and the trust deficit would be removed to pave way for the high profile meeting to iron out the differences but it didn’t happen. Ironically, in the last three weeks of ongoing Budget session PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti failed to break the ice despite initiating informal dialogue with the central BJP leadership. Instead of spending time in New Delhi, she preferred to stay put in the State and participated in the programmes organised at various district headquarters to strengthen the base of the party at the grass roots and boost membership drive. So much so after the much hyped secret meeting between Ram Madhav and Mehbooba Mufti in Srinagar no other significant meeting of BJP-PDP leaders took place triggering fresh round of speculations in the corridors of power. During her public meetings though Mehbooba Mufti dropped clear hints of early government formation but beyond this no major headway could be achieved. As per the political grapevine PDP remains a divided house and in the absence of cohesion between the top brass, the negotiations with the BJP could not take place to fine tune the contours of the Agenda of Alliance.
Inside reports from BJP camp revealed despite positive response from the state unit of the BJP it is the central BJP leadership and more significantly the all important trio, Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi are yet to take a final call on the future of the alliance government in the State. RSS too has played significant role in setting the tone of the negotiations with the PDP leadership. It has been made clearto the PDP that the central government cannot afford to provide long rope to the PDP leaders at the cost of annoying BJP’s core constituency across Jammu region.
It is for this reason the BJP and PDP leaders have apparently locked horns over the issue of announcing confidence building measures and the same is leading to undue delay in government formation in the state.
