Keeping all options open on government formation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Bharatiya Janata Party decided on Wednesday to send Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and party secretary Arun Singh to the State for consultations with the newly elected party MLAs and leaders of other parties.
Having won 25 of the 87 Assembly seats, the party has emerged as the second largest after the People’s Democratic Party, which has 28 seats.
The party has deputed senior leader J.P. Nadda and party vice-president Vinay Sahasrabudhe as observers in Jharkhand for election of the party’s legislature party leader. The BJP, along with its alliance partner, the All-Jharkhand Students’ Union Party, has won a majority in the State.
The BJP Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body chaired by party president Amit Shah and attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took the decisions at its meeting on Wednesday.
The party did not specify any timeline for the consultations, but the teams will probably leave after Christmas, which, being the birthday of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is being celebrated by the government as Good Governance Day.
Briefing presspersons after the meeting, Mr. Nadda said Mr. Jaitley and Mr. Singh would hold consultations on formation of alliances with leaders of other parties in Jammu and Kashmir, giving the indication that the party was keen on being part of the government.
He said the situation would become clear in three or four days and the two governments would be in place before the year-end.
Sources said the party was open to an alliance with either the People’s Democratic Party or the National Conference provided it can work out an agreeable common minimum programme. The regional parties, in turn, would like to seek assurances on the BJP’s position on contentious issues such as Article 370.
BJP leaders hinted that the party would be keen on having its Chief Minister, but the PDP might not yield on that.In that case, the BJP may suggest rotation of chief ministership, an unsuccessful experiment it did in Uttar Pradesh with the BSP, or may explore the possibility of seeking the support of Independents and smaller parties to push its numbers so as to stake the claim for government formation on its own. “The BJP has got the highest vote share [23 per cent] in J&K, which shows that the people have backed the agenda of development and Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas [idea] of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Mr. Nadda said.
The Parliamentary Board did away with felicitation of Mr. Modi in view of the Assam massacre, and observed a two-minute silence in the memory of those killed. The meeting expressed its deep sense of shock and grief over the killings.
The meeting passed a resolution expressing its “deep sense of gratitude” towards the government for conferring the Bharat Ratna on freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“It has fulfilled the desire of crores of people in the country,’’ it said.
