Is National Conference keeping the option of alliance with BJP open?

While the possibility of holding much awaited Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir this year looks bleak, National Conference (NC), it seems, is keeping an option of alliance with the ruling BJP open.

Sensing that the Assembly polls won’t be held before the Parliament elections in April-May 2024, the NC leader and former chief minister Omar Abdullah has dropped enough hints that his party wasn’t going to be part of anti-BJP ‘grand alliance’.

“I do not see any benefit from such an alliance (grand alliance of opposition parties) for the NC and in Jammu and Kashmir. I am repeatedly saying that when they need us, they knock on our doors,” he told reporters in border Rajouri district recently.

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Though Abdullah had joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Srinagar this January, neither him nor his dad, Farooq Abdullah or any NC leader issued a statement in support of Gandhi when he was disqualified as an MP.

Last month when the opposition parties boycotted the inauguration event of the new parliament building, Abdullah praised the new building terming it “pretty damn impressive”.

On the other hand NC’s arch rival People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti has been openly challenging and criticizing the police of the BJP government in J&K. Mehbooba, who was the last chief minister of the erstwhile state, has gone to the extent of claiming that the BJP will ‘bulldoze the country’s Constitution.’

On elections, Mufti says securing people’s rights is more important for her than elections.

Political observers believe that Omar doesn’t want to annoy BJP leadership at the Center knowing it could return to power in Delhi again in 2024.

“If the BJP returns to power in 2024, in all likelihood much awaited Assembly elections in J&K would be held after that. And any local party in J&K can’t form the government without BJP’s support which will win a good number of seats in Jammu region,” Majid Hyderi, a political observer and TV debater told DH.

Earlier in an interview with Karan Thapar, Peoples Conference (PC) chairman and former minister Sajad Lone claimed that the NC-BJP were “confabulating” with each other and that both the parties will form the next government in J&K.

Next week, J&K will complete five years under President's Rule after the fall of the PDP-BJP government. The Assembly was dissolved when PDP attempted to form a government with non-BJP parties around four-and-half years ago in November 2018.

Since then, Assembly elections were not held in the troubled region citing one reason or the other. The last time Assembly elections were held was in November-December 2014.