Amidst the uncertainty of government formation in Jammu and Kashmir, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti on Today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital. Mufti, who reached New Delhi on Monday for talks with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership, has called for a legislature party meeting on March 24. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on Monday asked PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti to make up her mind.”The fact is that the PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti has to really make up her mind,” Jailtey told.
Noting that the PDP and BJP are ideologically quite distinct, Jaitley said, “Our support bases are different, our core beliefs may also be different. But then there was one commonality that the people of J&K threw up a hung verdict”. Attempts to revive the BJP-PDP coalition in Jammu and Kashmir suffered a setback last week with BJP ruling out government-formation on PDP’s conditions. PDP with 27 MLAs and BJP with 25 members had formed an alliance on March 1 last year with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed as the Chief Minister. Both the sides had formed an “Agenda of Alliance” which sought to address internal and external dimensions of the state.
The PDP had toughened its stance after Sayeed’s demise by seeking concrete plans for the state’s development including handing over of power projects to the state and vacation of land by Army before the coalition could be resumed. Governor’s rule was imposed in the state on January 8 after Mehbooba decided against taking over the reins after her father’s death.
