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Will Drabu’s ouster impact PDP-BJP alliance in J&K?

Will Drabu’s ouster impact PDP-BJP alliance in J&K?

Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu and Mehbooba MuftiBy Sheikh Qayoom,

Jammu : The decision by Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to drop Haseeb Drabu from her council of ministers for his remarks at a business meet in Delhi is being hotly debated in political circles – especially what its consequences could be on the state’s PDP-BJP ruling coalition.

By doing what she has done, the Chief Minister has proved that she is prepared take political risks — and taking her for granted is something her colleagues and allies should learn not to do.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders were aghast after Drabu, who was the Finance Minister, was quoted as telling a meeting organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi that Kashmir was not a political problem and a conflict state but a “social problem”. He said this while seeking investments in the state from businessmen and saying the conditions in the state were conducive to business “where you will find some very interesting opportunities” not just to make money but also to have “a lot of fun and enjoy yourselves”.

PDP Vice President Sartaj Madni had said this was something which negated the very existence of the PDP because it is the firm belief of the party that Kashmir is political problem that needed political remedies to resolve.

Interestingly, instead of voices being raised in Drabu’s favour by his own party men, leaders of the PDP’s coalition unlikely partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seem to be more worried about the decision to drop him.

Some senior BJP leaders have rushed to Delhi to discuss the development and its fallout on the ruling coalition with the central leadership of the party.

How important Drabu had been for the PDP was proved not once, but many times in the past. The late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed trusted him to work out the terms of the agenda of alliance with BJP National Secretary Ram Madhav that finally paved the way for the present PDP-BJP coalition.

“Mufti Sahib always loved him and would overlook what some of his party men would say about Drabu Sahib,” said a PDP insider, not wishing to be identified.

In a letter released to the media after he was dropped from the cabinet, Drabu expressed sorrow for not being told by the Chief Minister or her office about the decision to drop him.

“I read it on the website of daily ‘Greater Kashmir’. I tried to call the Chief Minister, but was told she was busy and would call back. I waited, but my call was never returned,” he rued.

He also said in his letter that he had been quoted out of context by the media and that he what he had said was that Kashmir is not only a political problem, but that “we must also look beyond this”, Drabu clarified.

Sayeed made Drabu his economic advisor during his 2002 chief ministerial tenure and later made him the chairman of the local Jammu and Kashmir Bank. In fact, Drabu became the point man between the PDP and the BJP after the 2014 assembly elections.

The problem is that many PDP leaders had of late started saying that Drabu was more of “Delhi’s man in Kashmir rather than Kashmir’s man in Delhi”. Drabu is reportedly very close to Ram Madhav, the powerful BJP leader who is in-charge of Kashmir affairs, which many say “cost him his job”. It is this image that has been floating around in the PDP that finally cost him his berth in the state cabinet.

While even Mehbooba’s political adversaries, including the National Conference President, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, have welcomed her decision, her allies in the BJP are not happy at all about her decision.

“What did he say? He said it is a social problem and Kashmir is a society in search of itself. Is this wrong? We don’t think this is something for which such a harsh decision should have been taken,” a senior BJP leader told IANS, not wanting to be named.

His successor, Syed Altaf Bukhari, who has been assigned the finance portfolio, took a major decision immediately after taking over. Bukhari announced that the decision to replace the old treasury system by the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) has been put on hold. The ambitious PAO system was Drabu’s brainchild.

Bukhari’s decision has been welcomed by hundreds of contractors in the state who had been on strike during the last 13 days demanding their pending payments and suspension of the PAO system at least till March 31.

Would Drabu’s ouster be a storm in a teacup or would it have repercussions on the PDP-BJP ruling alliance in the immediate future? Ironically, Drabu’s PDP colleagues say it won’t be, while the BJP leaders in the state say it would.

(Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikh.abdul@ians.in)

—IANS

J&K’s PDP-BJP alliance becoming increasingly untenable

J&K’s PDP-BJP alliance becoming increasingly untenable

Mehbooba Mufti

Mehbooba Mufti

By Sheikh Qayoom,

Jammu : As security forces battled militants in both Srinagar and Jammu, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti reiterated that a dialogue between India and Pakistan still remained the only way out for lasting peace in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). While her ruling alliance partners in the BJP advocate a hardline approach and want to tell Pakistan that enough is enough, Mehbooba has consistently followed the peace approach.

Accepting that she would come under strong criticism for her comments during television news channel debates, the Chief Minister posted on her twitter page: “Dialogue with Pakistan is necessary if we are to end bloodshed.”

“I know I will be labelled anti-national by news anchors tonight but that doesn’t matter. The people of J&K are suffering. We have to talk because war is not an option.”

A war of attrition has already started between the two ruling alliance partners, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

BJP legislators on Monday strongly protested against the PDP’s silence on the pro-Pakistan rant by opposition National Conference MLA, Muhammad Akbar Lone. Lone had ruffled many a feather by shouting pro-Pakistan slogans inside the state assembly on Saturday.

Defiantly, Lone maintained his stance when confronted by the media over such an embarrassing stand by a mainstream lawmaker. BJP legislators have demanded that an FIR be lodged against the MLA for his anti-national stand within the state assembly.

The relations between the two ideologically opposite ruling partners in J&K have never been on even keel. The PDP politically remains Valley-centric from where the majority of Mehbooba’s 28 MLAs won in the 2014 elections.

All the 26 MLAs of the BJP were elected from the Jammu region as the party could not win a single seat in the Muslim-majority Valley.

PDP founder and former Chief Minister, the late Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who forged the present alliance with the BJP, called it a meeting of the South Pole and North Pole.

After unending ceasefire violations by Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB), militants have stepped up suicide attacks even before Kashmir’s tourism season starts this year.

On Saturday, heavily armed militants of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) outfit stormed a highly fortified army camp in Jammu city. Five soldiers and a civilian were killed and 10, including six women and children, were injured in this terror attack. After killing three terrorists, the army said on Monday a fourth surviving terrorist is still hiding inside the camp.

Even before the Jammu anti-terror operation could end, two militants of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit tried to enter a CRPF camp in Srinagar city, but were prevented by an alert sentry who saw them moving suspiciously outside the camp in the wee hours of Monday.

A fierce encounter was under way between the security forces and these militants who later entered a nearby under-construction multi-storeyed building. One CRPF jawan was killed in this gunfight while a constable of the Special Operations Group (SOG) of state police, fighting alongside the CRPF, was critically injured.

As tensions on the border and the hinterland start mounting, the hardline approach adopted by the BJP and the so-called soft-pedalling by the PDP could become mutually uncomfortable for the two ruling partners in the not very distant future.

State assembly elections are scheduled towards the end of 2020 as the term of the state assembly in J&K is six years against five in the country’s other states.

If the present ruling alliance lasts its full six-year term, the dictum that politics is the art of the possible would be proved right.

(Sheikh Qayoom can be contacted at sheikh.abdul@ians.in)

—IANS