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Critical issues at stake

THE FRACTURED VERDICT handed down by the people of Jammu and Kashmir in the just-concluded Assembly elections has predictably thrown up quite a few hurdles in government formation. If at one level the vote was a clear rejection of the National Conference, which had a hegemony of sorts in Kashmir politics for decades, at another level it is also a relatively clear mandate for the Congress and the People's Democratic Party (led by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed) — the two parties that together bagged 36 of the 87 seats in the House — to govern the State sharing power between themselves and with such smaller groups and independents as may be necessary. In fact, the two parties were believed to have reached an `understanding' at the constituency level with the common objective of drawing upon the pervasive anti-incumbency sentiments — a strategy that seems to have paid off. Now, five days after the verdict became known, the leaderships of the two parties are still wrangling over the Chief Ministership, although if media reports are anything to go by they are agreed on having a Deputy Chief Minister from the party that does not make it to the helm.

As a party that finished second (after the National Conference) with a tally of 20, the Congress obviously thinks — and not totally without justification — it has a better claim to the top position than the PDP, which has only 16 to its credit. The keenness of its high command in heading the Jammu and Kashmir Government may also be linked to the political message which the fact of having yet another State (making a total of 15) under its governance would carry in the national context and in juxtaposition with the BJP which has been losing election after election at the State level, especially against the backdrop of the renewed campaign against Sonia Gandhi on the `foreign origin' issue. But there are some overwhelming factors that are unique to Jammu and Kashmir and have to do with the historic opportunity the latest elections have now seemed to provide for a political solution to the Kashmir imbroglio, and here the PDP has a clear advantage over the Congress. A coalition regime headed by the PDP, a regional outfit which is known to have contacts with the separatists, would be much better placed to do business with the alienated elements in the Valley than the Congress, what with all the national party's historical baggage on the Kashmir front. Given that the PDP has emerged as a viable alternative to the National Conference in the Valley, denying to it the Chief Ministership could send a wrong signal. If that party could play the catalyst in bringing about a historic change through the ballot, much of the credit should go to Mehbooba Mufti, vice-president (and daughter of its founder, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed), who has emerged as an effective symbol for the aspirations of the Kashmiri youth. With her considerable political contribution to the herculean effort to keep Kashmiris within the Indian democratic system, she can become a rallying point for the effort to woo back alienated Kashmiris to the mainstream.

What is of the essence is that personality clashes and narrow partisan considerations should not be allowed to override the political imperatives of the State and, in an extended sense, of the nation. While voting out the National Conference, which by its singularly abysmal record in governance and brazenly opportunistic alliance with a communal party like the BJP (at the Centre) has forfeited public confidence, the people have also opted for a new set of interlocutors in the hope that they would, apart from providing a good and corruption-free government, work concertedly and in all earnestness on the long-standing demand for restoration of the State's original autonomy. The onus of rising up to the expectations of the Kashmiris is essentially on the Congress and the PDP and, from this standpoint, the deadlock between the two parties over the Chief Ministership issue is hardly inspiring.

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