Bargaining for power continues

People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mufti Mohammed Sayeed inveigled himself into the chief ministerial race yesterday as the bargaining for power in Jammu and Kashmir continued to thrive through Friday night and all of yesterday.

All three major parties in the fractured new house loosened their purse strings to buy or persuade the maximum number of legislators.

Turning the possibility of a split in his party into a bargaining chip, Mufti asked the Congress party to let him be the chief minister, Congress circles revealed. His implied threat was that a portion of his party, led by Muzaffar Ahmed Beigh, could form a government with National Conference support instead.

Outgoing Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah had since Friday night prompted a number of small groups and individual members to cobble a government that the 28 MLAs of his National Conference would support from outside. NC leaders worry that a regime opposed to them could reveal monetary scandals.

In talks with the Congress party, Mufti cited the argument that his daughter had expressed publicly on Friday, that the sentiments of the Kashmir Valley should be respected. In Kashmir's nuanced style of expression, that meant no chief minister from outside the Valley would be acceptable.

State Congress party chief Ghulam Nabi Azad hails from Doda, across the Pir Panjal range. Azad's claim is strong since the Congress party won 20 seats against the PDP's 16. The NC has 28.

Mufti was in New Delhi last evening for parleys with Congress party president Sonia Gandhi and Azad.

State Congress general secretary Taj Mohiuddin told Gulf News that it was up to Sonia to decide whether to give in to Mufti's demand or to insist on Azad becoming the chief minister.

If the Congress party headed the government, he admitted candidly that more than 40 legislators would have to be made ministers in the 87-member house.

The NC's strategy too was bogged down among conflicting claims. According to Srinagar's grapevine, Panthers Party chief Bhim Singh too wanted to be chief minister. Although he is not a member of the new house, four from his party have been elected. The NC was trying to juggle the aspirations of Beigh and Bhim Singh.

Asserting that he had spoken to Bhim Singh in the afternoon, Mohiuddin said that his Panthers Party was ready to support a Congress-PDP alliance. There were indications, however, that Bhim Singh was negotiating simultaneously with both sides.

He was not the only one to keep a foot in both boats. On Saturday, the four MLAs from the Jammu province who had joined the Congress party on Friday announced that they had not done so. They too had been wooed by the National Conference.

Mohiuddin acknowledged that Beigh was negotiating with the NC but asserted that he was not a serious challenge, since only one PDP legislator was with him. Mohiuddin also claimed the support of Shahjehan Dar, an independent from the city's Zadibal constituency, and Usman Majid, the lone legislator of the Jammu and Kashmir Awami League.

Majid too was approached on behalf of the NC, but his colleagues persuaded him to remain with the Congress party, one of these colleagues said.

On Friday, they had persuaded him not to align himself with Ghulam Mohiuddin Sofi, the independent who used to be a senior People' s Conference leader. The persuasion was apparently based on the promise that he would be a cabinet minister with charge of the lucrative Public Works Department.

Sofi tried his best to negotiate on behalf of a third ginger group in the house, like Beigh and Bhim Singh. However, his claim on Friday that eight legislators backed him was reduced by Saturday to six.

It appeared, though, that he really had the support of only Hakim Mohammed Yasin of Khansaheb. Mohiuddin was contemptuous of Sofi, however. Nor did he count on the support of another Srinagar independent, Raman Mattoo of Habba Kadal.

The only new legislators who were not in the market were the two Communists. They had taken a policy decision to back a Congress-PDP government but not accept ministerial berths.