The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to pull out of the coalition government with the Peoples Democratic Party has set the political wheels in motion in Jammu and Kashmir.
The J&K National Conference and Congress, who had offered support to the PDP after the 2015 assembly elections to prevent the BJP from coming to power, are trying to capitalise on the situation by calling for fresh elections.
The two parties believe fresh elections in the state would benefit them because of the anger against PDP in Kashmir and BJP in Jammu. They are planning to enter into a tacit alliance to prevent the division of votes on 13 seats in Muslim-dominated Chenab valley and Pir Panjal in Jammu.
In the last elections, the BJP had benefited in the two regions because the Muslim vote got divided between the NC, PDP, and Congress.
Omar Abdullah, NC's working president and former chief minister, has urged Governor N.N. Vohra to dissolve the assembly to prevent possible horse trading by the BJP to cobble up a new power equation in the state.
The possibility of horse trading gained currency after Kavinder Gupta, BJP leader and former deputy chief minister, said that they are “working on something and people will get to know about it”.
Omar had reacted to the statement by asking Gupta in a tweet, “What do you mean “we are working on something”? The only “something” would be to break other parties & make up the numbers to form a BJP Govt. Has the former DCM (deputy chief minister) inadvertently spilled the beans?”
What do you mean “we are working on something”? The only “something” would be to break other parties & make up the numbers to form a BJP Govt. Has the former DCM inadvertently spilled the beans? https://t.co/dbX4bK8goc
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) June 20, 2018
There are fears that the BJP would encourage rebellion in the PDP as it tried when Mehbooba Mufti delayed taking oath as the chief minister after the death of her father, Mufti Muhammad Sayyed, in 2016.
Senior PDP leaders admit in private that the party is vulnerable to horse trading as some of its MLAs may switch sides for power.
Another indication of the BJP's intent to engineer a split in the PDP became evident after Safina Beig, wife of the senior PDP leader and MP Muzaffar Beigh, was nominated as chairman of the State Women's Commission after the incumbent chairman quit following the collapse of the coalition government.
In another sign of the PDP MLAs jumping ship, Haq Khan, senior PDP leader and three times legislator from Lolab, has decided to quit the party.
Khan has not taken lightly his removal as Cabinet minister in the last reshuffle by Mufti a month before the BJP quit the government. Sources close to Khan said senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is in touch with him.
“He will not contest the next elections as a PDP candidate that is for sure,” sources close to Khan said. “The PDP has not treated him well.”
The BJP, on the other hand, will try to sell their decision to back out of the government as one aimed at protecting the interests of the people, who have accused the party of betraying their trust, especially, after the Kathua rape and murder of an eight-year-old Bakerwal girl. The BJP is hoping to leverage the breaking up with the PDP to retain the two Lok Sabha seats from Jammu.
It remains to be seen how far the party is able to sway the opinion of voters in Jammu in its favour like it did in 2014 parliamentary elections and 2015 assembly elections.