SRINAGAR: A day after the People’s Democratic Party dropped hints at forging an alliance with the BJP to cobble up government in Jammu and Kashmir the latter on Thursday said formal talks between the two were set to begin.
BJP’s state president Jugal Kishore Sharma, after briefly meeting Governor Narendra Nath Vohra at the Raj Bhavan in Jammu, said that his party’s priority was to give stable government. “The talks are going to begin, the talks will be held in a congenial atmosphere,” he said.
PDP patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, while reiterating that the ‘grand alliance’ proposal is ‘best suited’ for Jammu and Kashmir, is believed to have asked the BJP leadership not to see the issue through the prism of UPA-verses-NDA politics.
He has spoken over the phone with senior BJP leader L.K. Advani and Union minister Arun Jaitley whereas PDP vice-president Muzaffara Hussain Baig, who has strongly pitched for the tie-up with the BJP, has held several rounds of informal discussions with BJP general secretary Ram Madhav over the past week, sources said.
Against this backdrop, the BJP has sought “more time” from the Governor. “We’ve asked him (Governor) for some more time, so that the result of the ongoing dialogue (with other parties) comes out.
There are many issues that need to be discussed that is why it is taking time,” Mr Sharma said. The 6-year-term of the present Assembly will end on January 18.
