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| Fall in line or fall out: Congress to PDP | | POST SONIA EFFECT | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Apr 13
Fresh from the Sonia spanner, the Congress has asked the coalition partner, the Peoples Democratic Party to stop talking in the separatist tone of walk out of the government.
The Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Saturday, during his speech at the Mahila convention’ limited the scope of her discourse to her own party in Jammu and Kashmir with no mention of the coalition. The Congress leaders, already nursing grouse for the PDP, are seen upbeat since.
Senior Congress leader and Health Minister Pandit Mangat Ram Sharma today observed that the Peoples Democratic Party was creating confusion. He said that one the hand the PDP is speaking on myriad tones ranging from self rule to dual control and on the other hand they are sharing power. “This is not done”, said Mangat Ram.
The Health Minister was addressing a function here today after installing bust of Maharaja Gulab Singh in the premises of Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital. Mangat’s statement underlined Congress’ renewed warning to the Peoples Democratic Party.
In a dangerous sign for both coalition partners in the election year, a confusion is prevailing on the continuation of future alliance. On Saturday Sonia Gandhi dropped ample hints of going it alone. She specifically wanted the people to vote Congress back to power in Jammu and Kashmir.
Though, Sonia has almost always accommodated viewpoints of Peoples Democratic Party in the past she is said to have not cherished the PDP leadership's some of the slogans and demands. However, the state unit of the Congress and that of the PDP have left it to Ms Sonia Gandhi and the Mufti's to take a decision on the strategy the two would adopt while contesting the ensuing poll. At present the opinion in both the PDP and the state unit of the Congress is divided. That the Chief Minister, Ghlam Nabi Azad, is not in favour of the congress going to polls in alliance with the PDP seems to evident by the way his close associate Abdul Gani Vakil, social welfare Minister and vice president PCC has been supporting publicly the need for the Congress contesting the election alone. Those in the PDP who are opposed to going to the polls in alliance with the congress say that as a partner of the Congress the PDP could not cash on the peoples' anti centre sentiments in the valley. They say if there is a pre-poll alliance the PDP may not be able to contest all the 46 seats in the Kashmir valley and it would ose its freedom of selecting constituencies where it was to field its party candidates.
And those in the Congress who oppose alliance with the PDP argue that the congress may suffer reverses in the Jammu region, fromwhere it had won 15 seats in 2002, if it forged a pre-poll alliance with the PDP on the ground that the utterances of the PDP leadership regarding demilitarisation, open borders dual control etc was being dubbed by people in
Jammu as anti-national. |
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