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