Does Modi’s meeting with IIOJ&K parties signal a thaw or a trap?

NEW DELHI: Finally, the ice has been broken. The first meeting – since August 2019 – between the Modi administration and political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir took place on June 24.

All attendees agreed that it was a cordial meeting and each participant spoke his or her mind, foreign media reported. A thaw, then? Well, that is not so clear. Beyond the atmospherics, there appears to have been little to welcome.

The prime minister stressed the urgency of completing the delimitation exercise and holding elections but did not agree to return Jammu and Kashmir to statehood first. In other words, the six parties that comprise the People’s Alliance for the Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) will have to accept Union Territory (UT) status and participate in elections for an assembly with severely restricted legislative rights. And, if they win the elections, they must form a government with very limited authority. By laying out these first two steps, the Modi administration has put the PAGD in a cleft stick. Two of the parties in the PAGD, the National Conference and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), are in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the 2019 reorganisation Act that nullified Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood and created two UTs.

If they accept the prime minister’s roadmap, they will be abandoning their position, and their credibility will be further shredded. If they reject it, they leave the field open for the BJP and its allied parties’ candidates to be elected unopposed.

In fact, the People’s Conference too has challenged the Act. Whether the party will now downplay the challenge is unclear, but seems likely judging from party president Sajad Lone’s guarded comments after the meeting.

Having demanded the restoration of statehood, the Congress will also face the dilemma of whether to participate in UT elections. But it is not so grave an issue for them since those in Jammu and Kashmir who vote for the Congress do not do so on regional issues, but because they see it as the most acceptable national party.