BJP breaks up with PDP, J&K heads for guv’s rule

TUESDAY SURPRISE Mehbooba resigns as CM, opposition parties refrain from jumping into fray, hope for early elections; PDP rules out possibility of another alliance

Jammu and Kashmir was set for a spell of governor’s rule after chief minister Mehbooba Mufti resigned on Tuesday in a rapid turn of events after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ended its almost 40-month-old alliance with the PDP and withdrew its support to her government.

Late on Tuesday, Governor N N Vohra sent a recommendation to the MHA for imposition of Governor’s rule in the state. The move which will require the formal assent of President Ram Nath Kovind, who is travelling in Europe and Latin America and was on Tuesday night on a flight from Greece to Suriname.

The end of the BJP-PDP coalition came two days after the Centre decided to resume counterinsurgency operations in Kashmir, suspended for a month for Ramzan. BJP president Amit Shah first met national security advisor Ajit Doval, a key policy maker on Kashmir, on Tuesday morning, said a BJP leader familiar with the meeting. They discussed the situation in the state. Shah and other top national BJP leaders then met all the BJP ministers in the J&K government and the party’s state unit president, who had been called to the capital on Tuesday.

Ram Madhav, BJP’s key negotiator on Kashmir affairs, then held a press conference where he claimed that BJP had formed government with PDP to respect the electoral mandate of 2014.

Madhav said the Narendra Modi government had supported the state on both law and order and economic development; and had even appointed an interlocutor on Kashmir -- Dineshwar Sharma , a former IB director.

But he state government has failed in addressing the core issues in Kashmir, Madhav said. “The security scenario has deteriorated, causing serious concern about the protection of basic fundamental rights of life, free speech,” he added.