Enter, J&K grand alliance option, Peoples Democratic Party today said a grand alliance with the National Conference and the Congress was one of the options, but the National Conference played down the possibility. PDP sources confirmed that the BJP option too was very much on the table, and that party patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was consulting his MLAs as well as civil society members about the viability of an alliance with the BJP. The grand alliance proposed by Azad sahib (Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad) is one of the options, PDP chief spokesperson Nayeem Akhtar told The Telegraph. Government formation in the state is still deadlocked six days after the elections threw up a hung verdict. In an 87-member House with a majority mark of 44, the PDP has 28 seats, the BJP 25, the National Conference 15, the Congress 12 and the rest 7. Both the Congress and the National Conference have separately offered support to the PDP, but National Conference spokesperson Junaid Mattu today brushed aside the talk of a grand alliance. If he (the Mufti) needs us, our numbers would be enough (for him) to form the government, he said. Mattu then asked why the PDP would need his partys support if the Congress were ready to back it. They dont need our numbers because Azad sahib has said the Congress has 16 members (including four Independents) and the PDP has 28, which makes it 44, he said. We dont want to be ornamental. We are not here to satisfy his (the Muftis) wishes. He said his party had offered support to the PDP to strengthen the regional agenda: If a regional party aligns with a national party, the regional agenda gets handicapped. Akhtar, the PDP chief spokesperson, had earlier been quoted by a news agency as saying the party was willing to consider a grand alliance with the BJP and the Congress. That had prompted National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, who is in London, to tweet: A coming together against NC? We feel very important :-) When the PDP later denied these comments and suggested the secular grand alliance, Omar asked whether it was a serious proposal or more mind games to give the BJP decision makers sleepless nights. PDP sources said the Mufti was consulting as many people as possible to know the different shades of opinion about any alliance with the BJP, and that talks were on with both the BJP and the Congress. A PDP leader outlined the risks of an alliance with the BJP. He said even if the BJP swapped its demand for revocation of Article 370 with one for a debate on its relevance, other issues remained. Like granting domicile status (to several lakh Hindu refugees from the erstwhile West Pakistan living in Jammu) or creating exclusive zones in the Valley for the displaced Pandits. It will be very difficult for us to concede these demands. He, however, said a PDP-led government would desperately need a friendly Centre. Besides, we cannot ignore the Hindu heartland of Jammu, which has voted en masse for the BJP, he said. Neither the PDP nor the Congress has any Hindu MLA. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti will fly to Jammu on Tuesday to meet governor N.N. Vohra on Wednesday. Last week, Vohra had called the PDP and the BJP separately to discuss government formation. Term of the current House ends on January 18.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 22:20:00 +0000
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