Congress must be wary of ties with Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP

Mehbooba Mufti (File image)

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi on April 18 is widely seen as a course correction on Mufti’s part after having burned the bridges with the grand old party following her People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s failed alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This was the first meeting between since January 2016.

This was also their first meeting after the BJP-led government at the Centre revoked Article 370 on August 5, 2019, and bifurcated the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

J&K has been under President's Rule since June 19, 2018, when the BJP withdrew support to the coalition government, led by Mufti.

Though PDP leaders described the Gandhi-Mufti meeting as “apolitical and purely personal courtesy call”, the half-an-hour tête-à-tête has generated interest, especially in the context of the much-anticipated J&K assembly elections.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has repeatedly asserted that the elections in J&K will be held after the conclusion of the ongoing delimitation process following which statehood will be restored.

The delimitation commission, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, has proposed an increase of seven seats (six in Jammu and one in Kashmir) in the assembly. It has also suggested carving out of seven Scheduled Caste and nine Scheduled Tribe constituencies.

If accepted, the total number of seats will increase from 83 to 90 with 47 in Kashmir and 43 in Jammu. Besides, the assembly will continue to have 24 seats reserved and kept vacant for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). At present, Jammu has 37 seats and Kashmir 46. Before bifurcation, Ladakh had four assembly constituencies in the J&K assembly.

In the Kashmir valley, Mufti and her late father are widely blamed for the abrogation of Article 370 and downgrading of the state by forming a coalition government with the BJP.

Ironically, the PDP had fought the 2014 assembly elections with ‘Save Kashmir, Keep the BJP out’ as its main poll plank, but went on to ally with the same party.

The move was considered as betrayal on the part of the PDP given that the popular sentiment, particularly in Kashmir, was against the BJP.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had then turned down an unconditional offer of support by the Congress as well as the National Conference, and equated the PDP-BJP alliance to coming together of North Pole and South Pole.

With this, the BJP for the first time became a part of a government in J&K.

After Sayeed passed away in 2016, Mehbooba Mufti mulled for three months whether to continue the alliance. She was under tremendous pressure from party colleagues such as Tariq Hameed Karra (who eventually resigned from the PDP to join the Congress over the issue) to call off the alliance with the BJP.

However, she decided not to do so keeping in mind her late father’s wish, and finally took oath as J&K’s first woman Chief Minister on April 4, 2016.

This closeness to the BJP resulted in the dip in PDP’s popularity in Kashmir as it lost in all the three Lok Sabha seats from the Valley in the 2019 general elections.

Post-abrogation of Article 370, the PDP’s popularity is at its lowest ebb, and Mehbooba Mufti’s credibility has also taken a huge hit. Now, in order to stay politically relevant, she is keen to join the anti-BJP front. Her meeting Gandhi needs to be seen from this angle.

In the past few months, she has been consistently praising the Congress for keeping India safe, and for laying the foundation of brotherhood and communal harmony after the bloodshed of 1947 following Partition.

The Gandhi-Mufti meeting has set off speculation in J&K about a possible Congress-PDP tie-up for the assembly elections whenever it is held.

But for that the Congress will have to take along or snap its ties with the National Conference, and also consider the possible repercussions, if any, of an alliance with Mehbooba Mufti who in the past has been accused of playing ‘soft-separatism’ card. The national party must be wary of associating with the PDP; it stands to lose more than its gains from such an alliance.

It remains to be seen if the grand old party is willing to ignore these implications at a time when the BJP’s high-pitched nationalism agenda has made its electoral juggernaut virtually unstoppable.

Aurangzeb Naqshbandi  is a senior journalist who has been covering the Congress for 15 years, and is currently associated with Pixstory.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.