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| Congress counting chicks before they hatch | | |
NIRBHAY JAMMUAL
Though the hen is yet to start hatching the Congress has started counting chicks. After 10 days the election results for the 87 Assembly constituencies will be announced the Congress does not want to waste time. No doubt the party leadership has kept its doors open for forming a coalition Government in the state it is divided on the issue of forging alliance with the PDP or the National Conference. One set of opinion, favors the stand being taken by Ghulam Nabi Azad, another one is for experimenting with the ideas of Saif-ud-Din Soz, PCC Chief. While Soz is in favour of forming the Government in alliance with the PDP, Azad wants the Congress to have a tie-up with the National Conference for the formation of the Government.
Well it is too premature to say that the election results will throw up a situation in which the Congress, the National Conference and the PDP alone could get a chance for resorting to some permutation and combination of the two parties for forming the Government. Since there are other parties in the field besides a large number of potential independent candidates one cannot rule out the possibility of having a Government of several parties. When Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took over as Chief Minister he got support from various other non Congress parties, including the Panthers Party, the CPIM and the People Democratic Forum and some independent candidates. By the time Ghulam Nabi Azad took over the Panthers Party withdrew its support and the Forum got split with one wing supporting Azad led Government and the other opposing it.At the time the Mufti was sworn in as Chief Minister the Congress-PDP coalition required the support of eight MLAs for enabling the ruling coalition to have absolute majority in the 87-member House. That it got from other parties.
Some soothsayers are of the view that the election results will have many a surprises. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out. But despite these surprises power will be in the hands of either the Congress-PDP combine or in the lap of National Conference-Congress alliance. I do not foresee surprises to cause any major upset in such an equation. Assuming that the Congress, the National Conference and the PDP are in a position to form the Government the Congress high command will have to debate whether it was going to be a fruitful exercise to accept Azad's ideas on the pattern of the coalition or that of Soz. Azad seems to have been in favour of forging an alliance with the National Conference. The reason is only one. He feels he has been stabbed in the back by the Mufti when he withdrew support to Azad led Government. The Mufti is annoyed with Azad on two counts. First the Mufti believes that Azad had frustrated the former's plan of retaining power for another period of three years. Under the agreement reached between the PDP and the Congress the Mufti had to vacate the Chief Minister’s seat after completing three years. The Mufti did not want to lose power. He would have succeeded in securing extension had not Azad been tempted by the Chief Minister's "Gaddi." Secondly, Azad as head of the Government had reversed certain decision taken by the cabinet headed by Mufti Sayeed.
Prof. Soz actually belonged to the National Conference. He had been elected on the National Conference ticket to the Lok Sabha in 1989.And when he defied the whip of the party he belonged to by voting against the confidence motion moved by Atal Behari Vajpayee he was expelled from the National Conference. He later joined the Congress. Hence as PCC Chief he will not feel comfortable with Congress-National Conference coalition Government.
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