BJP for deal with PDP to continue

The meeting is seen as politically significant as BJP, an ally of PDP, has yet not officially extended support to Mehbooba for the Chief Ministership after Mufti’s demise.

“PDP’s ideology is whatever Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has stated and whatever decision including his decision to have alliance with the BJP Mufti has taken will be taken to the logical conclusion”, says PDP youth wing leader Wahid Parra.

Azad later said “there is no politics in this and no politics should be understood of this (meeting). And not only has it damaged Kashmir, but also the PDP”, Karra said.

However, each the events dismissed hypothesis that political points have been mentioned throughout his assembly with Mehbooba Mufti a day after Governor’s rule was imposed in the state, which is and not using a authorities after Sayeed’s dying in New Delhi’s AIIMS hospital on January 7. Sonia Gandhi had visited Mehbooba to offer her condolences, the Congress claimed. “I have come here to convey condolences on behalf of the central government”, he told reporters. In the 87-member state legislative assembly, the PDP has 27 seats (down from 28 since Mufti Sayeed represented south Kashmir’s Anantnag seat), the BJP has 25 and two allies from Sajad Lone’s Peoples Conference (PC). BJP leader Nitin Gadkari however, met Mufti as well, and said both parties would work together in the state.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir is set to go under Governor’s rule, with PDP president Mehbooba Mufti not prepared to be sworn in as Chief Minister till the mourning period for her father is over. “And not only has it damaged Kashmir, but also PDP”, the PDP MP said.

A visit by Congress president Sonia Gandhi also fuelled speculations of another dispensation coming to form in the state.

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said the party would like the earlier power-sharing arrangement to continue but the PDP has to decide its leadership issue.

She is reputed to have pulled her father out of political hibernation in 1999 when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was formed. The state mourning ends on Wednesday. “It will be a secular government”, Karra said.

With an unease creeping into both sides on the terms of engagement of the alliance with Mehbooba at the helm in government, the BJP does not want to open its cards yet on the issue, sources said. The BJP leaders are waiting for that to happen and are giving the required time and space to Mehbooba to come out of grief and be prepared to take over the chief ministerial mantle of the state.