india

Updated: Nov 23, 2018 09:16 IST

National Conference (NC) spokesperson Sameer Kaul said in an interview with Padma Rao Sundarji on Thursday that the coming together of three mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir, if only briefly, sets an example for the rest of the country to follow in Lok Sabha elections next year. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday staked a claim for forming a new government in J&K with the support of its arch rival NC and the Congress. The claim didn’t pass muster, with Governor Satya Pal Malik dissolving the assembly, in suspended animation since June, late on Wednesday night. Edited excerpts from an interview with Kaul:

The NC agreed to support political rival, the PDP’s bid to form the government in J&K yesterday. That unlikely alliance doesn’t exist today. The governor cited the ‘impossibility’ of parties with ‘opposing political ideologies’ forming a stable government”. Surely there’s an element of truth to what he said?

“The mahagathbandhan” (grand alliance) that took place in Srinagar yesterday is an example to the country ahead of the Lok Sabha elections that if this can happen in Jammu and Kashmir, it can happen anywhere in the country. The lesson for the BJP is this : don’t take things for granted. Yes, The NC and PDP have never been in an alliance. They have attacked each other consistently. And yet, all that was set aside for the larger purpose of calling the Center’s bluff. J&K, including the Jhelum Valley and the Pir Panjal division, do not like the kind of badgering that was at the core of the brand of politics being practiced in the state by the Modi-Shah combine: continuous attacks on the state’s special status, a complete disconnect between the mainstream political system and J&K, and so on. In that sense, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era was different. We want moralistic politics. Engineering defections and heaping pressure on J&K will not be tolerated.

But NC­-PDP kinship was a brief marriage of convenience. Surely not the best example of ‘moralistic politics’ for the country?

Sure, two rival parties came together for a particular purpose. That purpose has been achieved, so there is no alliance as such, any more. But who knows what the future holds? As for the BJP heaping ridicule on the NC and the PDP as being too disparate to ever stick together, the assumption is not necessarily true for all times. You never know what can happen when people get pushed against a wall.

Are you saying then that the NC and the PDP may well align again?

At the moment, there is no such discussion.