The questions assume importance because of the PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti’s pre-conditions for forming government. She has taken a firm stand demanding that, among other things, the central leadership give a written assurance that the agenda for governance based on the Common Minimum Programme agreed to by the alliance partners will be implemented in toto. She also wants initiation of confidence building measures which she has, however, not elucidated. The BJP leadership has failed to give any assurance on its ally’s demands so far.

The stalemate in the relations of the alliance partners can be traced to their conflicting ideologies which were, however, compromised for fulfilling their ambition to ascend to power. None of them had secured an absolute majority in the 87-member hung Assembly. PDP had won 28 seats and 25.

That the contradictions in the two parties coming together were inherent in the BJP’s ideological fountainhead the RSS directive that the party should not lose the opportunity which, being in power, would provide it to expand its base, particularly in the sensitive state’s Muslim-dominated Valley, a PDP’s citadel.

Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, however, thought that the coming together of the Muslim majority Kashmir-centric PDP and the Hindu-majority Jammu centric BJP had given the two parties a chance “to work for bringing peace and development in the state”. It was a desirable and pious wish which was widely appreciated with the well-wishers hoping that the sensitive state would get a stable government. But the latest developments threaten to shatter the hope.

No doubt, one year is too short a period in the six years tenure of the troubled state’s government for fulfilling the “peace and development” promise the Mufti had made. But there are little signs of the alliance government delivering on its “developmental” agenda.

The alliance government cannot take credit for the prevailing relative peace in the state. Seen in the backdrop of about a decade’s turbulent times when the state was hit by protests and violence, there has been relative peace mainly because of the security forces stepped-up offensive against terrorists and curbing of cross-border infiltrations. But what is worrying are the reports about the Kashmiri youths having lately started joining the militants ranks. The security forces have also expressed concern over the development.

After Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s death both the alliance partners find themselves in a Catch-22 situation. The image of the PDP in its citadel of Muslim-dominated Valley has been dented because of its having joined hands with a right-wing Hindu party for the sake of power and the alliance government’s lackluster performance on its “development” promise.

The BJP has also been losing its grip in Jammu, the party’s citadel since the days of the erstwhile PrajaParishad and the Jan Sangh. The media has quoted unnamed senior BJP leaders that most party MLAs including former ministers in the government of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed have told the central leadership that “too much appeasement” of the PDP will have the Jammu-centric BJP open to the charge of buckling under pressure. “Ever since we joined hands with the PDP in national interest, our stock among our core voters has only gone down”

An influential section of the saffron party is ostensibly against accepting Mehbooba’s pre-conditions on the central leadership giving a written assurance that the agenda for governance based on the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) agreed to by the alliance partners will be implemented in toto. She also wants initiation of confidence building measures which she has, however, not elucidated. The BJP leadership has failed to give any assurance on its ally’s demands so far.

Mehbooba has reportedly asked for a public announcement that there will be no tinkering with Article 370 which grants special status to the state, immediate announcement on revoking the Armed forces (Special Powers) Act from the peaceful districts of the state and initiation of the process of handing back two hydel projects from the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation to the state government.

In its CMP both the parties had taken a flexible stand on these issues. The BJP had even softened its stand and “agreed to maintaining all constitutional position pertaining to J&K.” Its stand on J&K issue, however, is in sharp contrast to the resolve of the RSS’s three-day brain-storming session of AkhilBhartiyaPratinidhi Sabha held at Nagpur on March 13, 2015. The apex decision-making body of the RSS “had reaffirmed commitment to abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Whatever the BJP and RSS’s public postures, the saffron party may not take the risk of not accepting Mehbooba’s pre-conditions for forming government. It cannot afford to lose a state ally in view of its fear of getting isolated among its regional allies who have already started asserting themselves. What have also hit its bargaining power is Modi and his government’s steeply waning popularity.

Modi needs to take a cue from his American “friend” Barack Obama whom he had hugged on his visit to Delhi on January 26. Obama says “No democracy works without compromise”. (IPA Service)