Modi could attend Mufti's swearing-in

Sayeed will head the first PDP-BJP coalition in the state, leading a 25-member council of ministers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed as the next chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir in Srinagar on Sunday. Sayeed will head the first People’s Democratic Party (PDP)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government in the state, leading a 25-member council of ministers.

After the oath-taking ceremony, the two parties will issue a common minimum programme.

On Friday, Sayeed visited Modi at his 7, Race Course Road, residence. The PDP leader, accompanied by his party’s chief interlocutor, Haseeb Drabu, held an hour-long discussion with the prime minister and invited him to attend Sunday’s function.

Jitendra Singh, minister of state (Prime Minister’s Office), said it was being seen whether the PM could visit Srinagar.

Sayeed said the BJP-PDP coalition was the “bringing together of North Pole to South Pole”. Once Modi and Sayeed came out after the meeting, they embraced each other. He hoped history would repeat itself when the PM visited Srinagar, a reference to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to that city on April 18, 2003, when Mufti was chief minister. Vajpayee’s visit was the first by a prime minister to Kashmir in 15 years.

Sayeed said Modi and he viewed Jammu & Kashmir as an “island of peace”, and for that, it was important to engage with Pakistan. He said the mandate of the December 23 election results was clear — Jammu had voted for the BJP and the Valley for PDP.

The two parties, he said, should work together to first create a calm political atmosphere and then deliver good governance.

The government, Sayeed said, should provide a “healing touch” to the anguished state.

On contentious issues such as the difference between the positions of the two parties on Article 370 of the Constitution (which grants special status to the state) and revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Sayeed said: “Leave these issues. These are not issues. We have to do all this.”

Sayeed didn’t rule his party joining the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.