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Multiple Perils of the BJP-PDP Alliance
Jammu and Kashmir has got an alliance government which brings together two antagonistic political forces in a strange political embrace. Spurred partly by their desire to use power to grow politically in areas where each is weaker, and partly by a lack of any other viable alliance, both these parties will have to rise above their traditional politics if their government has to deliver. An analysis of the compulsions which cobbled this government together and those that it works under.
In a state where controversies are courted almost like a law of nature, it was not quite surprising that within hours of the swearing-in of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the remarks of its new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed sparked a row. Mufti’s gratitude, soon after he was sworn in on Sunday, to “those across the borders” for not vitiating and disrupting the election process in J&K may have been received with a lukewarm reaction, even silence, within the state unit of the BJP but it had the national-level party leaders on their toes. Is this an indication of the storm in waiting or of a passing storm which both parties, entering into this unusual and historic wedlock for convenience or purpose, can survive without much damage? Much before the controversy erupted, even as PDP and BJP were on the last leg of clinching a deal for government formation, speculations were rife inside the state about the health and longevity of such a formation and about how this would impact politics and the future course of the J&K dispute. The alliance has evoked much more than academic interest. The reasons are not difficult to fathom.
The Compulsions
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