PM Modi to attend swearing-in on Sunday
NEW DELHI: PDP patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed will head a 25-member cabinet, half of it from BJP and the swearing-in ceremony on Sunday in Jammu will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the PDP-BJP deal sealed after ironing out differences over contentions issues like Article 370 and AFSPA, 79-year- old Sayeed, who will be sworn in as Chief Minister, met the Prime Minister on Friday, capping two-month long hard negotiations between the two parties on government formation.
According to highly-placed sources, Sayeed will be heading a 25-member cabinet which will have 12 BJP MLAs including a Deputy Chief Minister post. This is the first time that BJP is in the government in the state.
Accompanied by chief interlocutor of PDP Haseeb Drabu, Sayeed had a nearly one-hour long meeting with Modi during which he extended invitation to the PM for attending the swearing-in ceremony at Jammu on March one.
Modi and Sayeed were all smiles as they hugged and posed for cameras with their photographs trending on social networks within minutes.
“I have extended invitation to the Prime Minister for attending the ceremony and he has agreed,” Sayeed told reporters after the meeting at PM’s official residence at 7, Race Course Road.
He refused to answer any specific questions on controversial issues like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) or Article 370 and said the Common Minimum programme (CMP) will be announced at 3 PM on Sunday.
He said lot of discussions have taken place for the past two months to forge a common ground, a common agenda. He equated the PDP-BJP coalition with “bringing together of North Pole with South Pole”.
“The mandate of election is clear that PDP is the choice of people in Kashmir and BJP in Jammu. So we decided that we will unite together to give a government which will give all round development to all the regions in the state,” he said.
“It was discussed how a stable government should be formed. The PDP was of the view that we should not allow the opportunity to go waste as it was a historic opportunity with the government at the Centre that has a clear mandate of people to deliver,” he said.
Sayeed, who will be returning to power after a gap of more than nine years, backed Modi’s slogan, saying, “I also want Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas (development for all).” He was the Chief Minister of the state from November, 2002 to 2005.
SAJJAD LONE AMONG 12 PDP CABINET MINISTERS
Reports making rounds Friday said that the PDP team of the Cabinet Ministers would include chief spokesperson and MLC Naeem Akhtar Andrabi, MLA Rajpora and former Chairman of J&K Bank Haseeb Drabu, MLA Bijbehara Abdul Rehman Veeri, MLA Lolab Abdul Haq Khan, MLA Amirakadal Syed Altaf Bukhari and MLA Darhal Choudhary Zulfikar. PDPs MLA of Pattan Imran Raza Ansari and MLA Chadoura Javed Mustafa Mir are also likely to be sworn in on March 1.
Sources said that MLA Sonwar Mohammad Ashraf Mir and MLA from Zanskar Syed Mohammad Baqir Rizvi, would be inducted as Ministers of State in the PDP quota subsequently.
AND A HUG
A hug and a 60-minute long Chai Pe Charcha between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and PDP patron Mufti Mohammed Sayeed at New Delhi’s 7, Race Course Road on Friday changed the politics of Jammu and Kashmir forever.
The meeting, that was the final seal of approval of the unprecedented PDP-BJP alliance in the state ahead of Muftis swearing-in as chief minister on Monday, saw the two pre-poll rivals come together to begin a new experiment in Indian politics.
LITTLE IN COMMON
The soft separatist PDP and the ultra-nationalist BJP have little in common, except their will to rule Jammu and Kashmir together. The 15-point Common Minimum Programme that they reached at after intense two-month long parleys, will now be closely watched.
The BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has already expressed its reservations over the alleged dilution of the Sangh Parivar’s position on contentious issues like the Article 370 of the Indian constitution which gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir or the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to the Indian Army in its anti-militancy operations in the state.
OPTIMISM
But chief minister-designate Sayeed, after his meeting with Modi, was optimistic. “The PDP-BJP alliance is a political alliance first, then an alliance for governance,” he said in what was a candid admission of more being at stake than the two parties are perhaps willing to acknowledge.
“I discussed the challenges with the PM as Jammu and Kashmir is now hoping for peace. We face the challenge to give a stable government,” the PDP patron said.
Even the BJP was upbeat. “This is the best decision that could have happened given the mandate of the Jammu and Kashmir people,” Minister of State in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, said. “Both parties have formed a consensus on a Common Minimum Program, which will be presented after the swearing-in ceremony,” said Ram Madhav, who was the chief BJP negotiator behind the historic deal.
THORNY ISSUES
There is a series of thorny issues which will now be negotiated by the two allies together, who until now found themselves on the opposite sides of the debate. While the PDP has promised complete withdrawal of AFSPA from Kashmir, the BJP is not likely to concede to that demand easily.
On Article 370, the Modi administration last week said that it has no plans to scrap the provision from the Indian constitution. Still, there is little to believe that the issue will not be raised again by the Sangh on the ground. The RSS has always campaigned against the controversial provision.
The issue of Kashmiri Pandits is another thorny issue. The Centre has also held a series of deliberations with the representatives of Kashmiri Pandits in the last one year for their return and rehabilitation in the Valley, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
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