Revealed: How Ram Madhav and Haseeb Drabu weaved PDP-BJP alliance

BJP leader Ram Madhav has lost count of the number of rounds of negotiations–mainly in Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh– he had with PDP's Haseeb Drabu before finalising the deal that led to formation of a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir.

From opposite sides of the political aisle–one a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the other a Mufti Mohammad Sayeed confidante, their frequency matched in what was a war of nerves. But, in the course of their prolonged association poring over the fine print for over two months and preparing half a dozen "final drafts", neither did Ram Madhav turn non-vegetarian, nor Drabu a vegetarian.

The joke that went around was that Drabu, deputed to face somebody seen as a hard core RSS pracharak, was like Ramayana's Sita, who had to report to only one person while Madhav was like Mahabharata's Draupadi reporting to several. Ram Madhav had the prime minister's office, the BJP, the RSS and many other nationalist forces in Jammu to keep in mind during the negotiation process.

The toughest moments for both, as expected, were finding mutually acceptable positions on contentious political issues–Article 370, which gives the state special status, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), west Pakistan refugees issue and delimitation of assembly constituencies in Jammu.

While the two interlocutors–Madhav and Drabu–have completed their job, which now reflects in the Common Minimum Programme, chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's comments crediting Pakistan, Hurriyat and militants for smooth elections in the state has raised question marks for the future of the new alliance. With the BJP having high stakes that go beyond the state unlike the PDP whose interests are valley-centric, the next few days may indicate if they can bridge the "60 years gap" between Jammu and Srinagar that Sayeed spoke of after meeting prime minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP was quite sure from day one that they wouldn't be able to achieve its mission 44 plus. The party's objective was to get as many seats as they could from Jammu's Hindu belt and from Muslim belt of Jammu, by engineering Hindu polarisation. Its strategy was aimed at forcing Kashmir parties to share power with it, to break the jinx that its perpetually in opposition in the state and were untouchables for Kashmir-based parties. Soon after results, National Conference president Omar Abdullah sent his man Friday Devinder Singh Rana to Delhi to negotiate with BJP for government formation. Omar claimed he has support of 17 MLAs. The NC had won 15 seats. But the party wanted BJP, which won 25 seats, to allow Omar to continue. This was rejected by BJP. Therefore, it was decided that before Omar left for London, a deal will be sealed under which Nirmal Singh will be chief minister and NC's senior most MLA Ali Mohammad Sagar will be deputy chief minister. It was decided the government will take oath around January 6.

But, the deal fell through as there was revolt in National Conference. It was then that BJP turned to PDP.

Mufti began consulting his party MLAs in one-to-one meetings. His three Jammu MLAs who had won from Pir Panchal opposed the idea of alliance with BJP. But amongst his 25 MLAs elected from Valley, just one opposed.

The lone MLA who opposed was Drabu, once an economic journalist and a favourite student of Manmohan Singh. The scene shifted to Mumbai. Sayeed flew to Mumbai to oversee negotiations, met Amit Shah, Arun Jaitely, and is understood to have even spoken to the PM.

The BJP has learnt two lessons from the entire exercise. "One was to never lose sight of the larger objective and the other was that keeping this under wraps helps," a BJP leader said. Very few in the BJP–Modi, Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah and Ram Madhav were in the loop.