M Hasan
New Delhi, June 20: With 40-month alliance between People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and BJP coming to an abrupt end, the troubled Jammu and Kashmir is once again in for long spell of uncertainty. While the Governor’s rule is imminent, there appears to be no possibility of early state assembly election, as other parties-National Conference and Congress lacked numbers to form an alternative government. The political blame game has begun to escape the responsibility of this disastrous experiment.
Right from the beginning when the two parties-PDP and BJP- came together in 2015 to form the coalition government, it was absolutely clear that the alliance was sheer opportunistic move as both were ideologically poles apart. But the BJP’s directionless ambition to spread its wings in the Valley through governance forced for the tie-up with a party diametrically opposite view. While PDP followed soft separatist view, the BJP is known for hardline Hindu nationalism.
However now with an eye on 2019 Lok Sabha and ensuing assembly elections in few states, the BJP belatedly realised that unnatural alliance has become political burden and needed to be thrown away before it was too late. The saffron brigade’s ideological wing-RSS- was opposed to the alliance from the beginning. While the BJP’s Kashmir experiment has been a big failure the state too has been a big loser for various reasons. The militancy in the valley, especially South Kashmir, has assumed serious dimension and developmental activities had come to standstill. According to information the corruption in administration was rampant.
After three years of marriage in fact both were trying to find leeway to break the alliance. In Jammu, the bastion of the BJP, the people were restive against the party and in South Kashmir PDP had lost ground. The separatists too had opposed PDP move to ally with the BJP. Thus 2019 electoral compulsions were on both sides heavy on the mind to retrieve the lost ground and there was no way except to divorce.
The BJP in view of its core Hindu constituency was quite worried about peaceful and violence-free completion of Amarnath Yatra which appeared to be difficult under the ceasefire against the Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. Any untoward incident during Amarnath Yatra would have wider political ramification on the BJP outside Jammu and Kashmir. The Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti wanted the “Ramazan ceasefire†to be extended, but the BJP was opposed to the idea.
In fact situation was boiling down to breaking point for the last few months with PDP and BJP adopting hostile attitude against each other. From killing of Burhan Wani in 2016 to the murder of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari last week the Valley was on fire with daily killings and stone-peltors running amok against the security forces. The alliance had thus miserably failed to restore even the iota of normalcy and on the contrary the communal divide had sharpened.
With the BJP planning to go to people with its pro-Hindu plank in 2019 election, the alliance with the PDP simply did not get with it. Now the saffron party could at least try to tell the people that it made its best efforts to improve the situation, but PDP’s soft separatist posturing became major stumbling block. It was clear during BJP general secretary Ram Madhav’s press conference while announcing the snapping of ties. But the BJP cannot escape from the responsibility for the three-year mess the alliance has done to the state.
What Next?
This is the question which required the answer, as the state is going to be under long spell of central rule through the Governor. The security forces would certainly get more power and free-hand to supress the separatist forces, which may further worsen the situation. The governor’s rule in the past had never been successful. The NC has asked for early assembly elections. Will the state go to the poll with 2019 Lok Sabha election? Early the restoration of democratic process better for the state. Jammu and Kashmir under the governor’s rule cannot be left into the hands of security forces for a long time. A democratically elected functioning government is desperately required.
