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NC’s dilemma over PM visit

Kashmir Times. Dated: 5/27/2013 11:00:37 PM

Trapped between a belligerent PCC and an unhelpful Centre, Kashmir’s ‘grand old party’ has nowhere to go

Confusing signals are emanating from within the National Conference regarding the purpose and likely outcome of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s proposed visit to Jammu and Kashmir next month. On the one hand, rural development minister, Ali Mohammad Sagar, is heard pinning high hopes on it and, on the other, party spokesperson, Dr Mustafa Kamal feels that Dr Singh was coming here to ‘kill time’. More than anything else, this divided thinking over a significant political event points to confusion within the NC vis-a-vis its relationship with its ruling coalition partner, Congress. The NC and the Congress have lately been talking at each other more than talking to each other. Their acrimonious debate is conducted openly in full public view whereas their co-ordination committee, meeting behind the scene, is left to deal with inconsequential matters that, in any case, never get resolved.
The next assembly polls are more than a year away from now but the two ruling parties have been gunning at each to promote their partisan poll prospects. The NC would want the people to believe that it was now strong enough to go it alone and regain its lost electoral self-sufficiency. The Congress is in no mood to oblige and has mounted a shrill campaign to challenge the NC’s authority in the latter’s bastion.
Even otherwise also, the Congress has been in the driver’s seat since 2002. While the main battle ground, Kashmir Valley, is divided between the NC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it is the Congress which has been calling the shots when it comes to choosing between the two combatants. Having exhausted its ‘magnanimity’, by supporting the PDP (for half the term) after the 2002 polls and then switching its support to the NC (after the 2008 elections) for a full 6-year term, the Congress has run out of its patience. That, in plain language, is what the PCC president Saifud Din Soz intends to convey whenever he predicts that the ‘next government in J&K will be a Congress-led government’.
Between 2009 and 2013, the NC has come to realise and evaluate the cost of its alliance with the Congress. As the time passes, their uneasiness on this account is becoming more and more acute. Dr Mustafa Kamal leaves nothing to doubt when it comes to counting the cost. The NC’s fears are also getting aggravated because of unfavourable trends emanating from its traditional homeground. The party feels that its alliance with the Congress has dragged it to a political dead end. It is now seeking to extricate itself from this predicament but really does not know how. SOS-type hints thrown towards Mirwaiz Umar Farooq for revival of their political union have backfired.
The NC thus has reasons to feel apprehensive about letting its house remain mired in confusion even as its uneasy coalition with the Congress is beginning to expose chinks and cracks down the middle. The rival sides now leave nothing to imagination when it comes to questioning each other’s bona fides or taking position on major political issues. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s frustration over his failure to motivate the Congress-led UPA2 government at the centre towards bailing him out on crucial issues, like the lifting of the AFSPA and implementation of the recommendations of the Working Group of the prime minister’s Round Table on internal autonomy is no more a secret. To top it, the centre’s contemptuous disregard for Omar’s plea against hasty hanging of Afzal Guru exposes his utter helplessness.
Obviously, the NC cannot afford to go into the 2014 assembly elections with such a dismal picture of itself. It has hardly anything to show for reclaiming the confidence of the voters. NC’s choicest ‘autonomy’ plank flaunted in the 2008 elections has got disfigured beyond recognition because the Congress would not touch it even with a barge pole. That is the price for supporting Omar Abdullah. Time is running out for the NC. It has to either bite the bullet and take a clear cut principled position over its alliance with the Congress or allow itself to be treated as a political non-entity.