What Exactly Does Mehbooba Mufti Want? What Will She Gain Out Of This Drift?

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti could have occupied the coveted highest executive office in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) a day after her father Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died at New Delhi’s All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on 7 January. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the post-poll ally of the PDP, had expressed itself in favour of joining the government under her leadership. But Mehbooba Mufti chose not to assume the office.

At the same time, she neither overruled nor ruled in the possibility of re-stitching alliance with the BJP. Nor did she talk to media and held any party meeting for three long weeks after the demise of her father. She remained confined within the four walls of her Srinagar Fairview residence. She didn’t meet senior party leaders or functionaries except for her close confidant and party’s chief spokesperson Naeem Akht

Her silence and inactivity during those three weeks surprised her supporters, critics and even political pundits. The reasons were obvious. After all, she was Kashmir’s most vocal, most visible and very active political leader.

In between, two senior BJP ministers from New Delhi, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Surface and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, AICC president Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, one of the chief architects of the PDP-BJP alliance, did meet Mehbooba Mufti, but these were described by the BJP, the Congress and the PDP as purely “courtesy calls”.

During this period of wait and watch, many top BJP leaders, including Nitin Gadkari and Ram Madhav, also reassured Mehbooba Mufti through statements that the BJP was for the formation of the PDP-BJP government and it stood committed to implementing the agenda of alliance in its entirety.  

It was only on 31 January that she met with Senior PDP leaders, members of Parliament, legislators, office-bearers, district presidents and zonal presidents at her residence. Everyone in the state and New Delhi assumed that the meetings were to discuss government formation. But this was not to be.

She only discussed organisation-related matters, reflected on the difficulties that her father faced during March-December, 2015, when he was in the driving seat, and gave everyone to understand that she was not in haste.It would be only desirable to reproduce verbatim some relevant portions from her 45-minute address to party leaders and legislators. Such an exercise will help put things in perspective.

She said-

She further said-

A day later, she reiterated her stand. Addressing the PDP Legislature Party meeting at her residence, she, inter-alia, said:

The tone and tenor of her speech was such that Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, NN Vohra, on 31 January sent a fax message to Mehbooba Mufti asking her and J&K BJP president Sat Sharma to meet with him at the Raj Bhavan in Jammu on 2 February to explain their stand on government formation. The separate meetings between the Governor and Mehbooba Mufti and between the former and Sat Sharma did take place at the stipulated time, but both the parties stuck to their stated positions.

The BJP sought from the Governor ten days time telling him that the party was for government formation with the PDP and it needed some more time to iron out differences, if any, with Mehbooba Mufti. Earlier in the morning, two BJP leaders former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh and party president Sat Sharma had met with Mebooba Mufti at Jammu’s Guest House.

After their meetings with the Governor and the PDP boss, they interacted with media persons and explained away the part’s stand on government formation. While Nirmal Singh said the BJP was committed to fulfilling the late Mufti Sayeed’s vision for Jammu and Kashmir (Daily Excelsior, 3 Feb), Sat Sharma told Times Now that the “BJP was prepared to go even beyond the agenda of alliance” to save the coalition.

“Modi sahab and Mufti sahab had a vision regarding J&K. We will complete that vision. But constitutional problem is that until PDP selects a leader and tell the Governor and moves further to form a government, after that only we can move ahead constitutionally,” said Nirmal Singh.

As for Mehbooba Mufti, who for the first time after her father’s demise, talked to reporters, held her ground firmly and took the line she had taken on 31 January and 1 February. She, among other things, said:

After her meeting with Governor NN Vohra, Mehbooba Mufti again went into hibernation. She remained confined within the four walls of her house for almost three weeks – till 21 February. And when she ventured out of her Fairview Residence that day to address party workers in Srinagar, she yet again focused on organisational matters, discussed ways to make the ongoing membership drive in the State a great success and reiterated that for her the vision of her late father was non-negotiable and that it couldn’t fit in the Chief Minister’s chair.

She, in fact, went several steps further and, inter-alia, said:

That day, she also interacted with media persons at the same venue. When asked if there was any forward movement in talks with the BJP on government formation in the State, her candid response was: “Only time can tell” (PTI, 21 February). That was all that she said about the formation of government in the State.

Each and every word that she spoke on 31January,1, 2 and 21 February, all of her formulations, references to India-Pakistan relations, United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, gun, freedom and to her father’s vision were self-explanatory and needs no further elucidation and explanation. 

Suffice to say that she wants to form the government with her own terms and conditions and that she longs for a regime under which New Delhi will have a very limited jurisdiction over J&K, Pakistan will enjoy equal sovereign powers with India in the State, J&K will get demilitarised in a phased manner and borders will become porous and irrelevant. This was the vision of her father (PDP’s election manifesto 2014 Aspirational Agenda)

Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, who are already at the receiving end because of their “soft” attitude towards the PDP, endorse Mehbooba Mufti’s line? Or, will they take such a great risk just for the sake of a few berths in J&K Cabinet at a time when the entire opposition, its own ally Shiv Sena and bulk of the Indian media have been questioning the BJP’s hobnobbing with what they are terming as “separatist and pro-Afzal Guru PDP”?

It is really difficult to give a definite answer to these questions. The reason is that the BJP continues to defend its alliance with the PDP.

It does acknowledge that “there are certain separatist elements in the PDP” but defends the alliance saying “it would not be politically prudent to deal with “Kashmir, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in the manner the mainstream States are dealt with” (News24 debate on JNU episode, 22 February).

Let’s see what decision the BJP finally takes.

Post Script: Governor NN Vohra has sought the opinion of the Government of India on the dissolution of J&K Assembly as the deadlock between the two parties over government formation continues. Besides, Mehbooba Mufti, along with her mother Begum Gulshan, has planned to leave for Umrah later this week. Reports from Srinagar suggest that this would consume “at least two weeks” (Rising Kashmir, 22 February)