No progress on government formation; PDP, BJP dig heels in

Three weeks after the death of Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, J&K is little closer to the government formation. And with each passing day, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti has only raised more expectations of a significant political and economic concessions from New Delhi with little hope of the Centre actually fulfilling them.  For now, both the parties seem to have dug in their heels. 

The deadlock over the government formation is therefore likely to linger on unless PDP is “convinced of the BJP’s seriousness about the implementation of the Agenda for Alliance,” a PDP leader said. The party, he said, thinks that the progress on some key points of the Agenda of Alliance is long overdue and “a credible beginning has to be made somewhere” for the coalition to “retain its faith among the people.” 

 “We realize our agenda will take time to be translated into reality,” said the senior leader on the condition of anonymity.  “But we need to make a start somewhere.”

The party has also gone public with the demand for action on some key points in their common minimum programme, including the release of funds for the return of the power projects, vacation of land held by Army and the funds for the flood victims’ rehabilitation.  The PDP is upset about the “unilateral last minute pruning” from the Prime Minister’s Rs 80,000 crore J&K economic package of an “agreed” assistance of Rs 27,000 crore for buying back the state’s power projects from the NHPC, the PDP leader said. 

The party has also let it be known that it isn’t happy about the laidback manner in which BJP has treated their agreed agenda. It also reportedly holds a grouse about the BJP-supported attempts by NGOs and individuals to dilute the state’s special status. “This is something that has been a source of embarrassment for our party in its core constituency in Valley where people blame it for facilitating the attack on the state’s constitutional position by allying with the saffron party,” said another PDP leader.  

The coalition’s single most redeeming feature—the promise of economic recovery—has so far also been realized only in breach. The situation, the party sources say, has often come to a point where while the political and ideological confrontation between the alliance partners has moved to the centre-stage, the governance hasn’t made much headway, with flood rehabilitation turning out to be a hope bitterly betrayed.

 “Governance has two aspects. One part which is in our hands. And another which is in the hands of New Delhi,” said the PDP leader. “At local level we made some redeeming difference. We build roads, introduced reforms in education and did some work in rural development. But Centre hasn’t kept its side of bargain.”

The party wants its presidentMehbooba Mufti’s decision not to rush into swearing-in ceremony to be understood in the right spirit. “By doing this she has demonstrated that the real issue is not about her becoming the Chief Minister. She could have effortlessly done that on the first day itself. The real issue is about raising the bar for the mainstream politics in the state. It is about seeking the missing credibility for it. It is about telling people we are not about power only. And that we have a meaningful role to play in the welfare and future of our people,” the leader said. 

“We are bargaining with Centre at 28 seats. We negotiated and bargained with them at 16 seats too while NC didn’t do so even at 60; it is showing itself too impatient to enjoy the power to wrangle anything tangible for the people.”

But behind the PDP president’s recourse to playing hardball is also the niggling perception of a fast dwindling public support for the party for its alliance with BJP. 

The ten months of the coalition not only diminished Mufti’s vaunted political aura – a fact, some say, was underlined by the low attendance of the people in his funeral – but the period also saw the PDP woefully struggle to assert itself in the coalition.  The party was thus worried about the progressive decline in its popularity, which was paving the way for the rehabilitation of NC.  And BJP’s easygoing approach to the implementation of the Agenda of Alliance only seemed to make the things increasingly difficult. 

PDP, however, is happy with the Prime Minister NarendraModi’s efforts to engage Pakistan despite the Pathankot attack. “But we want the dialogue with Islamabad to be integrated with an outreach to J&K. It is not only about engaging those with dissenting political opinion in the state but taking steps that reassure and address the fears of the local population. We have to achieve a level of satisfaction and the confidence of the people of the state in our institutions,” the PDP leader said.

However, the party is conscious that it doesn’t have a viable alternative alliance option but believes BJP too doesn’t have one.  

What could clinch the deal, however, is not any political initiative whose most important component, the Indo-Pak engagement, is already happening but what PDP can get in terms of the action on one or two of the key points in the Agenda for Alliance. The assurance of the credible steps for the return of a power project could be one.     

Though the party is not willing to give any timeframe for the government formation,  there is a hope that the stalemate could end by February 16, when forty days of the mourning period after Mufti’s demise will end.