JOIN USWhile Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will not be part of the team, it will consist of Home Minister P Chidambaram and presidents of most of the parties.
The BJP is likely to be represented by its president Nitin Gadhkari and senior leader Arun Jaitely. Veteran leader L K Advani may spring a surprise by agreeing to be on board the special flight which leaves Delhi on Monday morning. Other Congress leaders including Parliamentary Affairs Minister P K Bansal, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and J&KPCC president Saifuddin Soz will be part of the delegation.
Senior leaders of other parties like Prakash Karat (Communist Party of India-Marxist) and Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), A B Bardhan [CPI], Manohar Joshi [Shiv Sena], Salahuddin Owaisi [MIM], T R Baalu [DMK], Maitreyan [AIADMK], Prem Gupta [RJD], Ramvilas Paswan [LJP] and Dinesh Trivedi [Trinamool Congress] are likely to be part of the delegation. The leaders will gain a first hand impression of the situation on the ground before taking steps to defuse the volatile situation.
The government will charter an all-economy aircraft, possibly an Air India flight to ferry the leaders. Interestingly, the team will also include translators including English to Hindi, Dogri to Hindi and possibly Hindi to Tamil. The leaders will meet a cross-section of people in the state, leaders of political parties and hold a meeting with Governor A N Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. Interestingly, the Centre will invite the separatists for talks although it is unlikely to be accepted.