Mehbooba names emissaries to break ice with Bukhari, Ansari; powerful lobby insists on accepting resignations

House of PDP weighs options between reconciliations, belligerence

ZAFAR CHOUDHARY

JAMMU: A day after two Cabinet Ministers shocked the ruling Peoples Democratic Party by their resignation, the focus of political activity shifted to Srinagar Saturday where Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti constituted a three-member panel to seek reconciliation with sulking lawmakers Syed Basharat Bukhari and Imran Raza Ansari.
However, sources told The News Now, a section within the Peoples Democratic Party and a strong lobby of Srinagar’s power elites were exerting indirect pressures on the Chief Minister to accept and forward the resignations of dissenting Ministers to Governor for acceptance. This lobby, sources said, was advising Mehbooba that she would emerge stronger if resignations are accepted.
Even as the Chief Minister didn’t say anything in public but she has constituted a three-member panel to hold discussions with the annoyed Ministers Bukhari and Ansari. PDP Vice President Syed Sartaj Madni, the newly inducted Minister for Education Syed Altaf Bukhari and a Vice Chairperson of Khadi Board Peerzada Mansoor have been told by Mehbooba to hold parleys with the sulking duo. Rural Development Minister Abdul Haq Khan and former MLA Rafi Ahmed Mir were running a parallel exercise to reach out to Basharat Bukhari and Imran Ansari.
Sources close to Bukhari said that the very nature of panel was ridiculous as some of the grievances the former Revenue Minister flagged to Mehbooba in his letter on Friday obliquely referred to the trio as part of problem and not the solution. However, Abdul Haq Khan, Sartaj Madni and Rafi Ahmed Mir visited Bukhari and Ansari separately but they didn’t confirm any ice-breaking moment.
Bukhari, sources said, told Mehbooba’s emissaries that such parleys will not yield any result until the points raised by him in his latter to Chief Minister were addressed. “I have made an elaborate mention of sequence of events leading up to my resignation. There are a lot of issues about the party and the government and it is not just about my portfolio”, Bukhari is reported to have told the emissaries.
Imran Ansari, who had to go abroad on a private visit, has been successfully convinced by Mehbooba’s emissaries to postpone his plans and stay back for further discussions to resolve the issue. Ansari, who represents a cohesive and numerically significant Shia community, told the emissaries that with a department like Sports he was in no position to serve his people. He has reportedly insisted for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department, which, he reportedly told the emissaries, was once promised to him.
PDP vice president Sartaj Madni confirmed that resignations have not been accepted even as he downplayed the whole political crisis in the party. “This is no news at all as the resignations have not been accepted”, said Madni.
Meanwhile, an ebullient newly inducted Minister for Education Syed Altaf Bukhari said the tension in the party is “just a small issue in the family.” He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti presided.
“It is a family issue. Members in a family do have small issues,” Bukhari told reporters. “You can quote me for saying that we will settle it within the family.”