Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Dec 24: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Parliamentary Board – the highest decision taking body of party, met in New Delhi today morning and discussed threadbare the election results in Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting, which was attended by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, party chief Amit Shah besides other members of the Board including Union Minister Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Venkaiah Naidu, besides Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and several other party leaders.
Reliable sources told EXCELSIOR that the party leaders unanimously decided to keep all options open for possibility of Government formation and decided to depute four– member team led by senior leader Arun Jaitley to hold talks with the party’s newly-elected MLAs in the State.
The party President, Amit Shah had listed the options as forming a BJP Government, supporting a Government and participating in a Government.
Jaitley during his visit to the State will be accompanied by party general secretary, Ram Madhav, Union Minister of State for PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh and Arun Singh. “The party leaders are expected to land in the winter capital at around 11.30 am”, sources asserted.
Party sources said that immediately after their arrival, the four member team is expected to participate in a function at party headquarters to celebrate the birthday of former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee who has been conferred Bharat Ratna today.
Subsequently, the party will have meeting of BJP Legislature party and all the 25 newly elected MLA at Royal Retreat, Hari Niwas at 12.00 pm. “The party is likely to hold parleys over election of the chief leader of Legislature party and several senior leaders including former State party President are vying for the post”, sources added.
It is pertinent to mention here that out of the newly elected 25 BJP MLAs, 21 are newcomers and only two have been elected for the second term. Two leaders, who made it again to the Assembly included Chowdhary Sukhnandan (Marh) and Sham Chowdhary (Suchetgarh). Bali Bhagat, who has been elected from Raipur-Domana had earlier also been elected to the Assembly in 1996 and 2002 but on mandate of Congress (Tiwari) and Congress party.
Meanwhile, talking to reporters in New Delhi, Health Minister and party general secretary J P Nadda told reporters, “The BJP Parliamentary Board today discussed the election results in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand and expressed a great sense of satisfaction,” Nadda said.
Asked about Jammu and Kashmir where the Assembly polls have thrown up a fractured mandate, he said the party was “open” for “all options”. Consultations will be held with other parties towards Government formation, he said while indicating that the BJP is keen to be in Government.
“The highest vote share that the party got in Jammu and Kashmir shows that the people of the State have backed the agenda of development and the ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Nadda said.
He said the Board felt that it is clear from the results that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have put their stamp on the agenda of good governance and development.
Riding on Modi wave , BJP reached its highest ever tally of 25 in the history of Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly elections making it second largest party in the State and just three seats behind the single largest party-the PDP of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, which bagged 28 seats, its highest so far in the House of 87. Ruling National Conference recorded worst ever performance with just 15 seats while the Congress bagged 12 seats, down from the tally of 17 in the outgoing Assembly. Any coalition of parties will need to have at least 44 seats to be able to form the Government.
Though BJP finished second with 25 seats, it polled highest number of 23 per cent votes (11.07 lakh) followed by PDP, which despite emerging as single largest party with 28 seats, mustered 22.7 per cent (10.92 lakh) votes. Ruling National Conference of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah bagged 20.8 per cent votes (10 lakh) while Congress got 18 per cent votes (8.67 lakh). Independents polled 6.8 per cent votes, which was much more than 2 per cent secured by Bhim Singh’s NPP, 1.9 per cent of People’s Conference, 1.4 per cent of BSP, .7 per cent of Hakim Yasin’s PDF and .5 per cent of Ghulam Hassan Mir’s DPN.
Three Independent candidates won the elections. They included prominent Pawan Gupta from Udhampur seat, Engineer Sheikh Abdul Rashid, who won Langate seat for second time and Syed Mohammad Bakir Rizvi, who made maiden entry to the Assembly from Zanskar seat in Kargil district. PDF candidate Hakim Yasin retained Khansaheb seat.
People’s Conference, which contested first Assembly election, won two seats (Handwara and Kupwara). CPM retained one seat, which MY Tarigami had been winning since 1996 though party had doubled its tally to two in 2002. Hakim Yasin, who had floated PDF retained his seat for third time. Independent Engineer Rashid also won Langate seat for second term while Pawan Gupta (Udhampur) and Syed Mohammad Bakir Rizvi (Zanskar) won as Independent candidates.
The BJP had all 11 seats from Jammu region in the outgoing Assembly and it won 25 seats in total, again all from the Jammu region. Despite impressive shows and polling good number of votes on some seats, the BJP was unable to open its account in Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
BJP had denied mandate to its eight MLAs out of 11 in the outgoing Assembly while another of its MLA-Jugal Kishore had vacated Nagrota seat after being elected to Lok Sabha. It has repeated only two sitting MLAs, both of whom won.
Reliable sources also said that some independents are also started cozying up with the BJP and had sent sufficient signals that they were willing to share power in the Government formation. Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference leader, which is being headed by separatist turned mainstream politician, Sajjad Lone had also contested elections as unofficial ally of BJP.
Meanwhile, People’s Democratic Front Chief, Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen and Independent leader, Engineer Rashid said, “no decision had been taken about extending support to any political party”. “Like in 2002, this time also elections have delivered a fractured mandate and independent candidate will play an important role in Government formation. Several important issues like Article 370, resolution of Kashmir issue and initiation of peace process have to be discussed before extending any support to any party”, said Mr Yaseen.
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