Ten days after its ministers in the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir resigned to facilitate a reshuffle in the cabinet, the Bharatiya Janata Party is undecided awaiting its president’s availability.
The party is however considering induction into chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s cabinet of a Scheduled Cast and legislators from Chenab valley where BJP won five seats in the last election, sources in the party said.
“Things are still undecided,” a senior BJP leader, who is involved in the reshuffle process, told Greater Kashmir on condition of anonymity.
“It will take more than a fortnight.”
On April 18, barring deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh, all BJP ministers handed their resignations to state party unit president to allow bringing in new faces into the government.
The reshuffle was also necessitated by the ouster of two shamed ministers, Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga from the government over their support to the accused in the Kathua gang-rape and murder of eight-year-old Bakerwal girl.
The senior BJP leader said the party’s core group leaders, including Singh and the party’s state president Sat Sharma recently visited Delhi to discuss possible new faces to be brought into the cabinet but returned without any decisions.
“The visit did not yield any result,” he said.
“Until (BJP president) Amit Shah is free from Karnataka elections, things will remain undecided.”
The senior BJP leader said the party high command was informed that besides giving representation to SC MLAs, the party should take into consideration representation of Hindu MLAs from the Chenab Valley and Peer Panchal regions of Jammu division where Muslims have a sizeable population.
“We are gaining in Jammu,” he said.
In 2014 state elections, the saffron party won the seats of Kalakote and Nowshera from Peer Panchal, Doda and Kisthwar in Chenab valley.
“Now we want to consolidate in Chenab valley and that is possible once those elected from these areas are given due representation (in the cabinet).”
The council of ministers led by PDP president and chief minister Mufti has 13 ministers from her party, including those holding minister of state (MoS) portfolios, the BJP has nine including Sajjad Lone of People’s Conference, who is also holding a portfolio on BJP quota.
The PDP has a one slot vacant after the recent resignation of Haseeb Drabu after his remarks that Kashmir was not a political issue embarrassed the party. Before Drabu’s resignation, the PDP had 14 ministers, including Mufti herself.