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MEANWHILE IN DELHI
Political circles are stunned by the Congress party's clumsy handling of the transfer of power in Jammu and Kashmir. Till Ambika Soni announced that the Congress would be taking over from the PDP in Srinagar, all the signals from 10 Janpath suggested that Mufti Mohd Syed would be allowed to continue as chief minister. In fact, when Syed and his daughter Mehbooba met Sonia Gandhi, her entire body language suggested that she was amenable to the idea of letting Syed stay on as chief minister. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave similar indications. So, when the fateful phone call came from 10 Janpath telling him that the Congress had decided it wanted the CM's job after all, no-one was more surprised than Syed. Sonia left Syed no scope to ask for time for consultations. A few hours later, Ambika was on all TV channels to announce the dramatic turnaround.
The decision was a last minute one, apparently, taken at a hurriedly convened meeting at 10 Janpath a few hours before it was made official. One story on the grapevine is that Sonia panicked after she was shown an IB report that Congress rebels were in touch with the National Conference to form an alternative government if Mufti did not step down. Another story is that the Congress was determined to take over the government as per the agreement with the PDP and the drama of the past several days was part of an elaborate charade to keep Sonia's white-as-milk Rajmata image intact by putting all the blame on rebellious MLAs. The truth will unfold itself in the coming days. In the meantime, the Congress has its hands full trying to placate a lot of very angry allies.
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The angriest ally is the Mufti himself. The word here in Delhi is that he's so upset by what he perceives as underhand dealing by the Congress that he's determined to keep the PDP out of Azad's government. The Congress had spread word that Mehbooba may be persuaded to become Azad's deputy CM but given the mood in the Syed family, that's been ruled out now. In any case, it's a messy process. Being a Member of Parliament, Mehbooba would first have to get a fellow PDP MLA to resign and then fight a bye-election in Kashmir's uncertain political climate. It's not a happy prospect. Syed has also refused to join the union cabinet or let his daughter be co-opted as a minister in the Manmohan Singh government. The Congress party's only hope of bringing the PDP around is Syed's finance minister Muzaffar Beg. He doesn't want to lose his post.
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One person who's said to be thrilled at the prospect of Azad becoming Chief Minister is his wife, Shamima. She's a true-blue Kashmiri. Shamima is often described as Kashmir's Lata Mangeshkar. She was awarded the Padma Shri for the phenomenal success of her first record.
Those who know the Azads say that Shamima has been harbouring dreams of being the First Lady of Kashmir ever since her husband's rivals in the AICC forced him back into state politics. After the Congress ceded political space to the National Conference under the 1975 accord between Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah, Azad has been quite rootless. He ended up representing Maharashtra for many years in the Rajya Sabha.
Email: a_jerath@dnaindia.net
