In J&K, clear signals from the governor

The appointment by Jammu and Kashmir governor N.N. Vohra of two advisers — who will perform the duty of government ministers — a couple of days ago is the clearest indication that PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti has decided not to continue with the 10-month-old PDP-BJP coalition government in the state.

The governor gave the parties 10 days to compose their differences, but there are few signs that the “mistrust” between the coalition partners has been lessened. Mr Vohra’s decision to name advisers is thus almost a closure of a kind, and a virtual announcement that Governor’s Rule in the state is to stay well beyond the interim period made available to the PDP and the BJP to re-work their relationship.

In all likelihood, the governor would have received a hint from the Centre that a popular government was unlikely to be revived in the present setting.

Ms Mufti’s short speech to her own senior party leaders on Friday also makes this amply clear. The PDP chief made plain that she was not making the absence of adequate Central financial assistance and grants a sticking point, but fundamentally desired that the BJP collaborate with her party to re-set ties and the terms of engagement between the two partners — that she wanted certain “confidence-building measures” in place so that a conducive political environment could be created for a new coalition government to be formed. In this context she has spoken of removing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from some places in the Kashmir Valley.

This is another way of saying that the PDP-BJP government is now truly history, for the BJP-led government at the Centre is unlikely to find any takers that will support any move to remove AFSPA in the present circumstances.

Indeed, Ms Mufti has, with deliberation, thrown a maximalist demand in the BJP’s court well knowing that its acceptance cannot even be remotely conceived. The PDP and the BJP have handled the situation in a sensitive border state very shabbily. Instead of focusing on governance, from the beginning the BJP thought its main task was to sharpen the communal wedge between Jammu and the Kashmir Valley, and to this end kept fuelling controversies on the beef issue and then on the question of the Kashmir state flag while denying the Valley the promised financial assistance — even flood relief.

This was happening when CM Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, a stalwart politician, was alive, and his daughter had every reason to believe to expect more of the same. Where she has erred is that she dragged things out too long. She should have prepared the ground for Assembly dissolution and eliciting a fresh popular mandate, not rule by the Centre, by indicating as much to the governor right at the beginning.