The Opposition parties reacted sharply to the BJP’s decision to pull out of the alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir, accusing the Union government of running away after pushing the State off the precipice.
The Congress, which holds 12 seats in the Assembly, has ruled out stitching together an alliance with other two Kashmiri parties — the PDP and the National Conference.
“The opportunistic BJP-PDP alliance set fire to Jammu and Kashmir, killing many innocent people, including our brave soldiers. It cost India strategically and destroyed years of the UPA’s hard work. The damage will continue under President’s rule. Incompetence, arrogance and hatred always fails,” Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.
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Ceasefire violations
In the past three-and-a-half years, under the BJP-PDP rule, the State saw the most ceasefire violations, deaths of security personnel and civilians, former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said. For the first time, he said children lost their eyesight, thanks to pellet guns.
“After all of this, the BJP is now washing its hands of it. The BJP and the PDP both are responsible for this mess. The BJP, however, has double responsibility because it is in the government at the Centre too,” he said.
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Mr. Azad ruled out any efforts to cobble together an alliance at this stage.
“There was a time we could have formed government together with the PDP and the NC. But at that time the PDP rushed to the BJP’s lap,” he said. Former Home Minister P. Chidambaram in a tweet said, “The long awaited break of the PDP-BJP coalition will be welcomed by all those who despaired that Kashmir may have been lost forever.”
Political instability
The CPI (M) Polit Bureau in a statement said the BJP’s decision to pull out of government would create ‘greater political instability’.
“It was an alliance between forces that never saw eye to eye on any issue but came together in an act of sheer opportunism to share the spoils of office,” the CPI(M) said.
Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury rued that the State had come to a “sorry pass.” “The people of Jammu & Kashmir have suffered heavily due to the confused and ham-handed policies at Centre and State. It has brought the situation to a sorry pass, which was unimaginable three years ago,” he said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a tweet said, “After ruining it, BJP pulls out of Kashmir. Didn’t BJP tell us that demonetisation had broken the back of terrorism in Kashmir? Then what happened?”