BJP’s pull-out from PDP alliance an ‘opportunistic’ move ahead of Lok Sabha polls: Congress

BJP announced on Tuesday that the party was pulling out of the Jammu and Kashmir coalition government with PDP because the alliance had become “untenable”.

Opposition parties said on Tuesday Bharatiya Jananta Party’s decision to pull out of the alliance with Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP government in Jammu and Kashmir was an “opportunistic” move ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti at the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, in Jammu. BJP pulled out of the PDP-BJP alliance government in the state. (PTI File Photo)

BJP leader Ram Madhav announced at a press conference in Delhi on Tuesday that the party was pulling out of the Jammu and Kashmir coalition government because the alliance had become “untenable”.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said on Twitter that BJP’s move to form the alliance with PDP and break the coalition government three years later were both “acts of political immorality”. The Congress party also ruled out forming an alliance with PDP in the state, said news agency PTI quoting Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah reacted by saying, “And so it has come to pass........ (sic)”

BJP ally Shiv Sena said shortly after BJP’s announcement that the alliance was “anti-national and unnatural” and it wouldn’t have lasted. “This alliance was anti-national and unnatural. Our party chief had said this alliance won’t work out. Had they continued with it they would have had to answer in 2019 Lok Sabha election,” party spokesperson Sanjay Raut told news agency ANI.

Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too hit out at BJP, writing on Twitter: “After ruining it, BJP pulls out of Kashmir.”

The BJP-PDP coalition government, formed in 2015 after assembly elections threw up a hung assembly, was divided on a range on issues. The alliance came under strain after the gang-rape and murder of a nomadic Muslim girl in Jammu’s Kathua region in January this year.

The two parties were also split on the issue of extension of the ceasefire announced by Centre during the holy month of Ramzan. While chief minister Mehbooba Mufti supported the extension, Union home minister Rajnath Singh announced on Sunday that the ceasefire will be discontinued and security operations in the state will resume.

(With agency inputs)