Dwindling support base holding up PDP in government formation in Jammu & Kashmir: BJP

NEW DELHI: While the PDP explained the delay in government formation after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s demise to its leader Mehbooba Mufti being in mourning, BJP leaders feel that the delay was on account of her fears over erosion of popular support base of PDP and her quest to find ways to reclaim the ground.

“The low attendance at Mufti Sayeed’s funeral has come as a shock to Mehbooba forcing her to wonder whether it was because people had distanced from the PDP patron because of his alliance with BJP,” confided a state BJP MLA who served as a minister in Mufti Sayeed’s Cabinet.

“She is in a dilemma because calling the alliance off with the BJP would amount to declaring that Mufti Sayeed’s decision to ally with BJP was wrong. That too so soon after his demise,” confided the former Jammu & Kashmir minister.

The Opposition National Conference seems to have sensed this predicament and has sought to corner her by daring the dissolution of the state assembly, knowing fully well that PDP would not risk it when its leadership was grappling with the fear of erosion of its support-base.

BJP leaders have suggested that she was still trying to come to terms with feedback and looking for avenues to justify her next move. No wonder BJP MLAs feel that it suits PDP to project that Mehbooba was dictating terms to the saffron party.

It is in this backdrop that PDP leaders have started suggesting less than desired respect shown by the BJP leadership to Mufti Sayeed after his demise and fresh demands of concessions from BJP-led central government to assert how Mehbooba is trying to reclaim the trust among party supporters in the Kashmir valley.

The former Jammu & Kashmir minister, in this context, wondered whether PDP under Mehbooba would try to last the full six-year term and try to pick up a battle with the BJP, down the line, to force elections in the state to win back the trust among its supportbase that seems to have been eroded after alliance with BJP.

Appreciating this dilemma of PDP, the saffron party, however, is ready to wait for a call from Mehbooba.