14 October 2002
AZAD ALL SET TO BECOME CHIEF
MINISTER
From Jal Khambata
NEW DELHI: The
Congress is preparing to even ditch the People's Democratic Party
(PDP) of former Union Home Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed to form a
government in Jammu and Kashmir on its own with the support of small
parties and independents.
PDP will be automatically out if it
refuses to be part of the coalition government headed by a Congress
chief minister, a top AICC source disclosed here on Monday shortly
before Panthers' Party supremo Bhim Singh called on Congress
President Sonia Gandhi to extend support of his party's four MLAs to
"a Congress chief minister from Jammu region."
Ghulam
Nabi Azad, who steered the Congress to bag 20 seats as the PCC
President, will be the chief minister and this should become ample
clear after his election as leader of the Congress Legislature Party
(CLP) showing that the MLAs also endorse Sonia Gandhi's choice, the
source said. Electing someone as a leader who is not even a MLA
itself should make this clear, he said.
Stressing that Sonia
Gandhi has advised Azad to persuade Mufti for his PDP, a regional
party floated by him, to join the Government, the source said Azad,
however, has a number to have the majoity even if the PDP stays
away.
Azad was even secretly trying to persuade Mufti for
merger of PDP into Congress with promise to push for his name as the
chief minister but that chapter is closed since Mufti spelled out his
own agenda to Sonia Gandhi in two rounds and also to Dr Manmohan
Singh and Ambika Soni which cannot be acceptable to the Congress, the
source said.
As a national party, the Congress cannot agree to
Mufti's idea of involving Pakistan and militants in talks for
resolving the Kashmir dispute, the source said.
There are
reports that an emissary of the Vajpayee Government had even sounded
out to Sonia Gandhi personally against accepting the Mufti formula
for resolving militancy in Kashmir and that is one reason why Sonia
Gandhi is now totally averse to let Mufti become the Chief Minister
lest he starts implementing his own agenda.
Together with
Panther's Party's four MLAs, CPM's two MLAs, three MLAs from Laddakh
and six independents from Jammu region whose support letters are
already with Azad, the Congress has already the strength of 35 while
three other independents from the Valley may also land the support,
the source said.
The Congress will, however, require a clear
strength of 44 members in the 87-member Assembly to have the
majority. Though the Congress source insisted that the party would
not resort to defections to muster the strength, a word has gone
around in the AICC headquarters here that seven or eight MLAs of the
outgoing ruling National Conference (NC) may shift to the Congress to
push up its tally to 45. END