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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
The refusal of both the Congress party and the People's Democratic Party to yield the chief minister's post in Jammu and Kashmir to each other on Sunday resulted in a solution eluding the two regarding the formation of the state government.
Although both the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ghulam Nabi Azad and the People's Democratic Party chief Mufti Mohammed Sayeed held consultations in Delhi to break the deadlock, their respective claim over the chief ministership persisted.
Later, Congress sources told rediff.com that Sayeed held informal consultations with senior party leaders Ambika Soni and Dr Manmohan Singh, apart from Azad, but the matter remained unresolved.
At the official level, however, the two parties maintained the stand that there was no official appointment between the PDP chief and his Congress counterpart Sonia Gandhi.
The sources pointed out the PDP's caveat to the Congress that any further delay [in the formation of the government] might embolden mischief-makers [read the National Conference] to put up roadblocks did not impress the Congress leadership.
"The Congress leadership is adamant that it has 20 seats over the PDP's 16 and, therefore, our party has the right for the chief ministership," the sources said.
Sayeed's efforts to break the impasse followed his party's vice-president [and daughter] Mehbooba Mufti's categorical refusal to accept Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad as the chief minister. Her party has been insisting that the CM in the new government should be from the valley, while the Congress should accept the deputy chief minister's post.
Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir Governor Girish Chandra Saxena invited the National Conference, the Congress and the PDP for a meeting to discuss the various possibilities towards government formation.
A single paragraph letter from Saxena to these parties also emphasises that a government should be sworn in by October 18, failing which there will be a constitutional crisis necessitating the imposition of governor's rule.
This made a hasty Sayeed tell reporters that his party and the Congress would successfully form the government, but this apparently is proving to be easier said than done.
Although the National Conference chief Omar Abdullah said the invitation by Saxena to him was just a mere formality, political observers contend that no scheme of things was impossible in politics.
Although they conceded that the people had largely voted against the National Conference, they also pointed out that there remained an 'outside chance' that the NC may agree to support a MLA from among the independents as the chief minister.
But, these political observers also acknowledged that the prospects of the Congress and the PDP sinking their differences to cobble up a coalition government were 'much greater'.
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