Oppn leaders slam BJP’s ‘opportunistic’ decision
J&K COALITION ENDS NC’s Omar Abdullah pitches for governor’s rule until polls are held NEW DELHI/ SRINAGAR:
Opposition parties said on Tuesday that the Bharatiya Jananta Party’s (BJP) decision to pull out of the alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government in Jammu and Kashmir was an “opportunistic” move ahead of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2019.
BJP leader Ram Madhav announced at a press conference in Delhi that the party was pulling out of the coalition government because the alliance had become “untenable”.
Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said on Twitter that the BJP’s move to form the alliance with the PDP and break the coalition government after three years were “acts of political immorality”.
The Congress party also ruled out forming an alliance with the PDP in the state, said news agency PTI, quoting senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad. He said the BJP had committed a “Himalayan blunder” by forming a government with the PDP. “The regional parties should have been allowed to form an alliance among themselves,” he told reporters in Delhi.
Former state chief minister and National Conference working president Omar Abdullah reacted by saying, “And so it has come to pass... (sic)”
BJP ally Shiv Sena said shortly after BJP’s announcement that the alliance was “antinational and unnatural” and it wouldn’t have lasted. “This alliance was anti-national and unnatural. Our party chief had said this alliance won’t work out. Had they continued with it they would have had to answer in 2019 Lok Sabha election,” party spokesperson Sanjay Raut told news agency ANI.
Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too hit out at BJP, writing on Twitter: “After ruining it, BJP pulls out of Kashmir.”
Meanwhile, Abdullah favoured governor’s rule in the state, and called for fresh elections soon so that people can choose their own government.
“I just returned from the Raj Bhavan where I met governor NN Vohra. I told him that the NC did not get the mandate to form the government in 2014 and so we do not have the mandate to form the government in 2018. We told him that the NC is not discussing government formation with any political party. Neither has anyone approached us nor are we going to approach anyone from here,” he told reporters here.
He said he told Vohra that in a situation where no single party has the mandate to form the government, the governor has no option but to impose his rule.
“He (Vohra) will have to try to improve the extremely bad situation in Jammu and Kashmir. I, on behalf of my party, have assured the governor of full support and we also requested him that the governor’s rule should not be for long because, after all, people have the right to choose their own government and we want that the governor and his colleagues to make the situation conducive in the state once again and elections be held once again and whatever people decide in the elections will be acceptable to all of us,” Abdullah said.
The Left Front also pitched in. “The BJP-PDP was an opportunistic alliance but the BJP pulling out of the coalition government at this point may push Jammu and Kashmir into “greater uncertainty”, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said on Tuesday.
It also stressed that the BJP could not wash its hands of the deterioration in the situation and of “deepening the alienation of the people”.
“The decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to withdraw from the coalition government with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir at this particular moment has the potential of creating greater political instability in the state. It signifies the total political failure of the BJP’s approach in the state,” the CPI-M said in a statement after the BJP quit the uneasy coalition.
“This alliance was untenable since the beginning. It was an alliance between forces that never saw eye to eye on any issue but came together in an act of sheer opportunism to share the spoils of office,” it added.