NEW DELHI, June 19, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – India’s ruling party withdrew Tuesday
from an alliance government in the disputed Kashmir region in what analysts
described as an attempt to appear tough on militancy before a general
election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it was pulling out of the governing
coalition in Jammu and Kashmir state because of worsening “terrorism and
violence”.
The Hindu nationalist party had ruled in the restive state since March
2015 when it struck an unlikely alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP), a local political outfit which has advocated more autonomy for
Kashmir.
“It has become untenable for the BJP to continue in the alliance
government in Jammu and Kashmir,” senior BJP leader Ram Madhav told reporters
in New Delhi, referring to India’s only Muslim-majority state.
“Today there is an increase in terrorism and violence, radicalisation is
spreading fast.”
Madhav said the state government had failed to curb radicalisation or
guarantee civilian rights in the volatile territory disputed with Pakistan.
The state’s chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, who hails from the PDP,
tendered her resignation after the alliance lost the majority to rule.
The state’s governor, a figurehead who is appointed by New Delhi, will
rule Jammu and Kashmir until fresh elections are held or a new coalition is
cobbled together.
The move was seen as the BJP walking back its involvement in the troubled
state, which has been racked by conflict for decades but which has witnessed
an upsurge of violence under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
This decision allows the BJP to act tough on Kashmir before a general
election next year in which Modi will seek a second term in office, analysts
said.
“What it (BJP) will do between now and elections is increase its political
rhetoric against the separatists in Kashmir,” said Manoj Joshi from the New
Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
“It will be political rhetoric of how the BJP will save the situation in
the Kashmir region of the state,” he told AFP. The decision means Modi’s BJP
controls one less state. But it will still govern 18 of India’s 29 states
outright or in coalitions.
The PDP, which draws its support from the mainly Muslim north of the
state, has long demanded the removal of a draconian law that gives Indian
forces sweeping powers to search, enter property and shoot on sight.
The BJP, whose base lies in the Hindu-dominated south, said the law was
needed to curb insurgents fighting for Kashmir’s independence or for its
merger with Pakistan.
The fighting has left tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, dead.