news details |
|
|
| PDP, BJP have recognized realities in J&K | | Maintaining regional balance | | Neha
JAMMU, Feb 28: It was on December 23 last year that the Assembly election results were declared, but the people of the state didn't get the government for more than two months. The PDP-BJP coalition government would be in place only after 11 a.m. onSunday, March 1. The 2014 mandate was such that no single party was in a position to form government on its own strength. The elections had thrown up a hung assembly and the people of all the three regions had voted differently. A majority of voters in Kashmir had voted for the PDP. The PDP won 25 out of 46 seats from the Valley and the NC, the Congress and the Peoples Conference won 12, four and two seats, respectively. The remaining three seats were won by Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami of CPI-M, Hakim Yasin of PDF and Er Rashid. In Jammu, an overwhelming majority voted for the BJP. It won 25 out of 37 seats. The Congress won five and the PDP and the NC three seats each. One seat was won by a BJP rebel. In Ladakh, the voters voted overwhelmingly for the Congress.
The Congress won three out of four seats and it happened for the first time in the region's electoral history. The remaining fourth seat was won by the NC-supported independent candidate, who is now with the PDP. Such was the nature of the mandate. It made the task of the government formation extremely difficult.
The PDP could have formed the government with the help of the Congress or the NC, but it decided otherwise considering the nature of the mandate. Similarly, the BJP could have formed government with the help of the NC, but it also decided otherwise. The PDP and the BJP decided otherwise because they knew that the people had voted against the NC-Congress' unpopular and corrupt coalition government. It would have been a negation of the mandate had the PDP formed government in alliance with the NC or the Congress or had the BJP formed government in alliance with the NC. Both the parties maintained patience despite the negative campaigning against them both in the Valley and Jammu - campaigning done by the NC, the Congress, the JKNPP and many others. Both the PDP and the BJP appreciated the nature of the mandate and the fact that it would not be in the best interest of the state to keep any of these two parties out of the government.
Leadership of both the BJP and the PDP held the view that since the people of the Valley had voted for the latter and the people of Jammu in favour of the former, it would be only politically prudent for them to join hands and form the government by devising an agenda for the coalition government. BJP veteran, Leader of the Rajya Sabha and Union finance Minister Arun Jaitley and others in the BJP repeatedly said that while the people of Jammu had given a clear mandate to the BJP, the people of the valley to the PDP, and the best thing for it to do in the prevailing peculiar situation was to tie up with the PDP. "Today history has inflicted a mandate. PDP is largest (party) in Kashmir, BJP is largest (party) in Jammu. Either one of the regions is kept out of power altogether, or this is a historic opportunity to bring about a larger national reconciliation in Jammu and Kashmir which will be in larger interest of this country," Arun Jaitley, for example, said in the Rajya Sabha on Friday while tearing into the Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had used unparliamentary language against the BJP. Actually, Jaitley responded to the remarks made by Azad wherein he had said that "Red Rags had won in the State". By the Rad Rags, Azad meant the BJP. Founder of the PDP Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, former Deputy Chief Minister and PDP ideologue Muzzaffar Hussain Beig and PDP spokesperson Nayeem Akhtar, like the BJP leadership, also said umpteen times that the nature of the mandate was such that the PDP and the BJP alone had to work together. Mufti Sayeed, for example, on Saturday said: "The mandate of election is clear that PDP is the choice of people in Kashmir and BJP in Jammu. So we decided that we will unite together to give a government which will give all round development to all the regions in the state". He made this statement after his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence, New Delhi. It appears from the statements made by the BJP and the PDP that both are for maintaining regional balance. How else should one interpret the alliance between the two? One can hope that both the parties would work for the overall development of the state and ensure parity between the regions. J&K is a very difficult state to be managed and administered. It also needs a careful handling.
The PDP-BJP coalition has to perform and deliver; establish that they are different from the NC and the Congress; and not only bridge the gulf between the regions but also between the Valley and the rest of the country. To be more precise, its mantras in the words of Arun Jaitley should be three: sovereignty, good governance and development and regional balance. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
