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| Will Mufti be able to fight Congress and the National Conference after quitting the Govt.? | | |
Jammu, March 10
Will the PDP patron, Mufti Mohd.Sayeed, whose relations with the alliance partner, the Congress, are no longer as sweet as they were in 2002, afford to fight on two fronts after severing the ties with the Congress?
This question is being debated even in the PDP circles which believe that for a regional party it will be difficult to go against the party in power in the centre and fight the Congress and the National Conference. The National Conference could afford to fight the party in power in the centre for sometime because at that time it had no threat from the unborn PDP. Even then former Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah had realized the mistake of entering in confrontation with the party in power in the centre.
Soon after Dr Abdullah succeeded his father Sheikh Abdullah in 1982 he had been led to believe that for his political survival and for retaining the support of the vote bank he had to adopt anti-centre postures. He did it and demonstrated it in full strength during the 1983 Assembly election. Though his party won the poll the confrontation with the Congress, which was in power in the centre, in general and Mrs Indira Gandhi, who was the Prime Minister, in particular, led to the fall of Farooq-led Government in 1984.The Government was toppled through defections which had been engineered by the Congress.
And when the state went to the poll again in 1987, after a spell of Governor’s rule, Dr Abdullah had, by then, become mature enough to realize the subtleties behind state-centre relations. He did not hesitate announcing in public rallies that no Government in Jammu and Kashmir could be stable without the support of the centre. On occasions he would say “the centre can destabilize the state Government even if it’s a two-third majority in the Assembly.”
And out this realization he had an unwritten electoral understanding with the Congress thereby regaining power in 1987 and he did not feel shy in taking some of the Congress legislators in the council of ministers he headed. He got ample support from the centre when the poll schedule for the Assembly was announced in 1996.In those troubled times the National Conference won the election and formed the Government which was voted out of power in the 2002 Assembly poll as by that time the centre had started giving indirect patronage to the Mufti.
By the time 2002 Assembly poll was held the Congress had distanced itself from the National Conference which was evident by the way Ms Sonia Gandhi conceded the PDP demand to lead the Government for the first three years. During the last three years Ms Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh have acted as mediators between the PDP and the state unit of the Congress because till date the two have been in favour of the PDP-Congress coalition to complete its full term.
It is upto Mufti Mohd.Sayeed and his volatile daughter, Ms Mehbooba Mufti, who heads the PDP, to respond to Ms Gandhi. However, if the father-daughter duo toughened their stance on demilitarization and scrapping of Armed Forces Special Power Act neither Dr Manmohan Singh nor Ms Sonia Gandhi may be in a position to come to the rescue of the PDP.
Mufti Mohd. Sayeed is already aware of the NC scheme of pushing the PDP to the wall. The NC leadership has given repeated assurance to Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad on its support to him, either from inside or outside, if the PDP quit the Government. f such a situation arose the NC leadership may get a chance to go closer to the Congress High command.
In such a situation the PDP has to bank on its populist slogans for securing peoples’ support if it has to fight the NC and the Congress. Indications are the PDP leadership finds itself in a soup and it is not prepared to quit the Government which may leave it vulnerable in the light of the inherent conflict it has with the National Conference. |
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