President’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir on December 20 opened a big question. What was the Plan B with the BJP when it withdrew support to the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government on June 19. Perhaps, it had not asked this question to itself, as the President’s rule visited the State after a gap of more than 22 years in less than a month’s time after the dissolution of the State Legislative Assembly on November 21.
This question gains extraordinary importance as the BJP’s alliance with PDP was not isolated in nature to Jammu and Kashmir in a sense that the saffron party also ruled at the Centre, that became the fatal attraction for the PDP to align with it in a false hope that it would help it rebuild the parts of the State devastated by unprecedented floods in the autumn of 2014. Besides, it was looking to mitigate its own image that was dented by this alliance by ushering in developmental era. It did not happen, a it was destined not to happen from the day one, given the ideological and political contradictions that characterized the alliance fostered on the impossible thesis of bringing north pole and south pole to the middle-ground . Now the fact is that the two poles have not only moved farther from each other but a new profile of hostility to each other is what has come to light . But, the politics dictates that expediency works at all times and also in the most odd ones. Whatever Fairview or Delhi may swear now but the possibility of their coming together again cannot be ruled out in one form or the other. This rule may not apply vis-à-vis National Conference and Congress that by turns were allies and adversaries, but such a possibility of BJP and PDP is very much on the horizon. That is what politics is. It is never separated by black and white – there are gray areas all the time.
Till such time, we need to understand what happened and why? Unfortunately, no precise answers are available. That the two parties were not pulling along well from the day one an that the coalition government built on compromises on contradictions had to fall one day is history now . In any case, BJP for the simple reason that it is a national party and governing the country , it had greater responsibility too. It should have had a Plan “B.”
If its Plan B was to impose Governor’s rule, it should have specified for what. Was it to give time to the parties to cool their heels for a while and re-emerge with a new combination to form the government so that the Assembly could complete its life of six years in full. Or, was it to end the era of unprecedented corruption and mis-governance once and for all – that too is not clear . Nothing is clear, in fact.
In less than a month after the Governor’s rule was imposed in June, there was a lot of grumbling among many of the members of the now dissolved Assembly – that they have been reduced to the status of MLAs just with monthly salaries because their constituency development funds were also kept in suspended animation, and that they could not lay foundation stone or inaugurate the projects. They were also angry when the performance of the government was judged on the basis of their three and a quarter years in office. Their calculation was that the had been office for 36 months only – 10 months of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed rule, and the rest 26 of Mehbooba Mufti’s rule. That was technical. In actual terms, they would argued that they were in office for less than 30 months as they lost wok time for the six months of unrest triggered by the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016 . The whole thesis was built that an alternate government should be put in place to work full-time for the rest of the term of six years, and the MLAs should be given access to the CDFs and to connect with the people through inauguration of projects or laying of foundation of new projects. These were the men who thought that the BJP would propel them to the chair. Even that did not happen because as Governor Satya Pal Malik said he was averse to the idea of swearing-in of a government of defectors .
By all conclusions, if the BJP calculated that it had to go in for fresh elections to the Assembly, then Centre should have enabled the Governor to dissolve the Assembly the day Governor’s rule was imposed. It did not happen for next six months. So, one is bound to ask,” What was the plan B.” It seems that there was no plan at all.
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