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No decision as yet on change of guard in J-K

    New Delhi: No final decision has been taken as yet on change of guard in Jammu and Kashmir and the President of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi is expected to consult party leaders before a decision is taken in the matter. Senior party leader and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said this after a meeting among Sonia, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti and Mukherjee. Mufti, who met Sonia today, is understood to have held talks on the issue of transfer of power in the state. The Chief Minister has reportedly asked the Congress to consult its leaders on the handover of power in Jammu and Kashmir. The discussion was called after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held consultations on Saturday with key members of his cabinet on the issue. Mukherjee said that Sonia during her 30 minute talk with the Mufti reviewed the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Under the power sharing agreement between the allies, Sayeed's governing PDP is to transfer control of government to the Congress on November 2, after completing three years in office to pave way for the coalition partner to head the alliance government.

     Sources said that while the Congress might prefer to delay the transfer of power, the PDP is pushing for a quick decision. It has said that uncertainty in the matter was causing confusion in the state's administration and seriously affecting the quake relief operations. Earlier, ahead of Sayeed's meeting, Mehbooba Mufti met Sonia. Mufti had however upon his arrival in New Delhi said, that they would discuss the ongoing relief operations in the state following the October 8 killer quake. The 2002 assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir had resulted in a hung assembly, and as a compromise formula to form a government in the state, the PDP, the Congress and the Panthers Party forged an alliance. The bigger alliance partner the Congress, with 20 seats in a 87 member Assembly decided to install the then PDP president Mufti Muhammad Saeed whose party had a tally of 16 seats, as the chief minister for three years. As per the power-sharing formula, it was also decided that the Congress would assume the reins of the state for the second half of the six-year term. Assembly polls in J and K are held every six years, as against other states that go to polls every five years. Following the 2002 elections which no party could secure a majority, the Congress, the PDP and the Panthers Party had entered into an alliance to keep the then NDA ally and ruling party the National Conference out of power. The NC could win only 28 seats in the polls, which was almost half of its strength in the previous assembly. Mufti's term comes to an end on November 2, but the situation that has arisen out of the October 8 earthquake has created an atmosphere where Mufti is likely to continue in the CMs chair. Senior Congress leader and union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who has been projected as the party's choice to assume the chief ministership, recently said: "Let us talk of relief and rehabilitation of the quake victims and not of change of political guard." Though Mufti is not reluctant to vacate the throne for the Congress, sources privy to the PDP claim that the Chief Minister would be willing to continue if offered by the Congress. Another option before the state is to have an alliance between the Congress and the NC, which is still the number one party with 28 seats. In past too, the two parties have been alliance partners. They fought the 1987 polls together, but the NC joined the NDA, following the 1999 general elections in the BJP-led Vajpayee government in which the current party chief Omar Abdullah was a member of the Union Council of Ministers. Only recently, the NC parted ways from the NDA.