The announcement of a coalition government between the BJP and PDP in Jammu and Kashmir is expected shortly, party sources have confirmed to The Hindu .
PDP leaders Mehbooba Mufti and Muzaffar Beigh are expected to meet with BJP president Amit Shah on Monday night or Tuesday, while the final announcement will be made when PDP chief Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after that.
Sources told The Hindu that the swearing in of Mr. Sayeed as chief minister with BJP’s Nirmal Singh as deputy chief minister is expected to take place on February 26th.
Confirmation of the meetings indicate that all pending issues between the two sides have been tied up after nearly 20 rounds of talks that have lasted two months.
Negotiations between the two parties who are idealogically opposed to each other in the State had run into rough weather over the weekend over the issue of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
The wording of the common minimum programme, which was drafted between the interlocutors PDP’s Haseeb Drabu and BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, had to be cleared at every step by the BJP leadership in Delhi and by the PDP leadership based in Jammu, and even on Saturday, sources familiar with the negotiations said they were “stuck on a couple of words still”.
While the PDP had agreed to give up its demand for a “time-bound withdrawal” of the law, the BJP insisted that any move on the law must be made with “security concerns” of the Army being considered.
The new government will mark the first time the BJP will be part of a government in the State.
