Oppn to corner BJP on J&K

The dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly when PDP-led combine was attempting to cobble up a government will be the fresh battleground for Opposition against Narendra Modi government.

Opposition camp believes that the move by the PDP, its arch-rival National Conference and the Congress to join hands took the BJP by surprise and it led to the sudden dissolution of the House, which they are pitching as an "undemocratic" move.

While they will fight it politically, some are looking at the option of approaching the court to corner the BJP, which was attempting to form a government with Sajjad Lone at the helm.

Their argument will be that the haste with which the governor dissolved the House when PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and her rival Lone sent separate letters seeking to meet him to stake claim for forming the government showed that the BJP did not want the Opposition to form the government at any cost.

Opposition sources said they would also raise the "misuse" of Raj Bhavan. Singh was appointed the governor in August after the Centre shunted out veteran bureaucrat N N Vohra from Raj Bhavan. Vohra had put the state under Governor's Rule after the PDP and BJP parted ways in June.

As the BJP foregrounded Lone as the face against traditional powerhouses of the PDP and National Conference, the other parties swiftly moved to come together against the move. Their move was fastened as the BJP and Lone managed to get support of PDP veteran Muzaffar Baig to joint the "third front" in Kashmir led by Lone.

"This shows Modi government is losing control. The BJP did not have an inkling of what was happening. They were trying to divide the PDP. However, we outsmarted the BJP and the decision to come together sabotaged the plan," a senior Opposition leader told DH.

In his reaction, National Conference's Omar Abdullah said that his party has been pressing for assembly dissolution for five months now. "It can't be a coincidence that within minutes of Mehbooba Mufti's letter staking claim, the order to dissolve the assembly suddenly appears," he tweeted.

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told DH, "This move is very anti-democratic. The governor should have explored all options to form an alternate government. That is the law of the land. We oppose this".