Race for power in J&K: Omar Abdullah, Amit Shah ‘meet’ sparks speculation

Srinagar/New Delhi: Amid reports that former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah met the BJP leadership — including party president Amit Shah and Union minister Arun Jaitley — in New Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of government formation in the state, a fuming Congress, the National Conference’s ally for six years, has, without naming Mr Abdullah, called him and his party “power hungry”.

The BJP, however, denied that any such meeting took place. The National Conference also ruled out any possibility of tie-up with the BJP citing a fundamental difference between the two parties.

Mr Jaitley, along with MoS in the PMO Jitendra Singh and BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, reached Jammu on Thursday and held discussions with party MLAs. Mr Jaitley asserted that the saffron party has several options in government formation and holds the “veto power” in the state. “All options are open for us.

The newly-elected MLAs of the party have decided that they will go with the decision of party president Amit Shah, who will take a decision which is good for the party, the state and the country... The central leadership of the party will decide where it wants to sit in the Assembly or how to form the government,” Mr Jaitley said while addressing the media.

The NC was speaking in many voices till Wednesday evening, which included extending support to the PDP in government formation, and, at the same time, proclaiming it will not take the lead for talks on the issue on the plea that “government formation is the responsibility of the BJP and the PDP because they have more numbers than the National Conference”. However, later, the party denied that it was considering support to BJP saying it doesn’t believe in a “marriage of convenience”