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An unfolding political drama in Jammu and Kashmir

Pallab Bhattacharya
THE militancy-wracked Jammu and Kashmir appears set for a fresh round of elections to the state assembly after Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolved the House on Wednesday night. The dissolution of the legislature capped an intense day-long political drama that featured jockeying for power to the extent that one saw two arch rivals in the state's politics—Mehbooba Mufti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and National Conference (NC) headed by Omar Abdullah—readying to join hands to thwart attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to regain power in alliance with a small, Kashmir Valleycentric party, People's Conference, spearheaded by Sajjad Gani Lone.
Mehbooba Mufti has been sulking ever since the BJP quit the alliance with the PDP in June this year, leading to the fall of the two and a half years of the coalition government of the two parties and a premature end to the term of Jammu and Kashmir's first woman chief minister. The unravelling of the PDP-BJP coalition arrangement, which was predictable because of their incompatible ideologies, once again
rammed home the perils of the tour-de-force alliance-making caused by the badly-fractured mandate thrown up by the previous assembly polls in the state in 2014, when Mehbooba's party emerged as the largest single group followed by the BJP.
No less untenable would have been the coming together of the PDP and the NC along with the Congress party just to keep the BJP and Lone from having a go at the formation of a new government. While the Congress party had shared power in the state in alliance with both the PDP and the NC on separate occasions, Mehbooba and Omar have traditionally been on the opposite sides of the political spectrum in Jammu and Kashmir. Interestingly, the PDP and the
NC had a few days ago demanded the dissolution of the assembly paving the way for fresh elections.
Jammu and Kashmir was brought under the federal Indian government's rule after the collapse of the PDP-BJP alliance. But the state assembly had been kept in suspended animation for the last five months in order to explore the possibility of new political alignments and re-alignments taking shape and the
state getting back a stable, elected government especially at a time when the security situation has deteriorated. But the dissolution of the assembly has clearly jeopardised chances of all possible forms of political permutations and combinations to cobble an alliance and form a government. In fact, political circles in New Delhi are abuzz with the speculation that given the hostility between the PDP and the NC, the two parties had just enacted a drama of coming together to form a coalition with the twin objectives of scuttling any move by the BJP to return to power in the state and forcing the Governor's hand in dissolving the assembly.
The Governor cited four main grounds for why he assessed dissolution of the assembly as the best course of action: a) no party or alliance would have been able to provide a stable government through the joining of hands by political parties traditionally hostile to each other, b) serious doubts over the longevity of any such coalition, c) reports of extensive horse-trading and the possibility of money power in enlisting the support of legislators, and d) the fragile security situation which needed a stable state government backing anti-militancy operations. Implicit in Malik's fourth reason for dissolution of the assembly is an assessment that any coalition government would not have been able to go for a robust anti-militancy drive because of contradictory pulls and pressures guided by political considerations.
It remains debatable whether this assessment of the Governor was fair and whether he should have not given any alliance an opportunity to prove majority on the floor of the assembly. Should a Governor, who is supposed to be non-political, assess the longevity of a coalition which is essentially a political issue? Should he not have satisfied himself by looking just at the legislative arithmetic of a majority on paper and leave the trial of strength to the assembly? There are instances of coalitions with robust majority falling apart after assuming power.
However, there was a sense of relief among the major political players after
the assembly dissolution. For the PDP, the party seems to have averted a possibility of desertion by its legislators and a split in the party as there had been rumblings of revolt among some of its leaders, including Muzaffar Hussain Baig and Haseeb Drabu, who had in the recent past dropped enough hints of leaving the flock. Baig was considered a close aide of Mehbooba while Drabu was said to be sulking ever since she had removed him as finance minister. Just a few days ago, Baig, a founder of the PDP and a parliamentarian, was quoted by the media as having expressed his readiness to back the "third front" led by Sajjad Lone. Three other legislators were reportedly warming up to the idea of such a front. In fact, Mehbooba herself lent credibility to the threat of a split in her party when she went on record accusing the BJP of trying to engineer a split in her party and installing a "minority" government with the backing of the saffron party from outside.
The National Conference may have cemented its anti-BJP credentials by showing that it was even ready to bury the hatchet with the PDP in order to counter the saffron party. Besides, the party would not have liked to join a coalition government with just two years left for the dissolved assembly's term to end. The thinking in the party was that a coalition set-up with the PDP would have exposed it to the anti-incumbency risk without enough time to work effectively in a short time.
The reading in the Congress party of Wednesday's political developments is that its show of readiness to align itself with the PDP and the NC may send a positive signal about its efforts to emerge as the anchor of a pan-India opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the coming parliamentary polls. The Congress hopes that if sworn rivals like the PDP and the NC, the main regional parties in Jammu and Kashmir, were willing to set aside their differences in its company, this strategy could be replicated in other Indian states where powerful regional parties have fought turf battles with the Congress.
Pallab Bhattacharya is a special correspondent at
The Daily Star.