Congress, NC, CPI-M take potshots at PDP-BJP alliance in J&K

It was less a swearing-in ceremony, more a national executive committee meeting of the BJP held in Jammu, said Ghulam Nabi Azad

Taking a swipe at the new PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir, Congress today said Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed should be "careful" about BJP's conversion agenda while National Conference wondered how ministers of the saffron party, whose idealogue had opposed the state's Constitution, now owed allegiance to it.

"It was less a swearing-in ceremony, more a national executive committee meeting of the BJP held in Jammu," Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said.

He had said earlier that all decisions of the PDP-BJP alliance would now on be "taken at Nagpur", where the RSS headquarters is located.

"Since for BJP, it is an era of conversions, the PDP leadership has to be careful lest there is a political conversion from PDP to the BJP," Azad told PTI after the oath ceremony in which Sayeed and 24 others from PDP and BJP were sworn-in Jammu.

NC working President and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah took pot-shots at BJP Ministers in the new coalition, saying they swore allegiance to the same Constitution of the state which their ideologue Shyama Prasad Mookerjee died trying to get rid of.

"BJP Ministers swearing allegiance to the same constitution of J&K that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (sic) died trying to get rid of," Omar said in a tweet, even as he congratulated the new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on assuming charge.

Mookerjee, founder of Jan Sangh, had died under detention as he was demanding for full integration of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union on June 23, 1953 opposing the special status for the state.

In a series of messages on Twitter, Omar also mocked at new minister Ashraf Ghani Mir saying with a smiley, "Ashraf was the same person who fired an AK47 to celebrate when he beat me. What the hell will he fire today to celebrate becoming minister".

The former Chief Minister also underlined at the apparently poor representation of Kargil in the Sayeed Cabinet, saying "Ladakh gets a minister but Kargil doesn't, while Srinagar gets 3. There will be considerable heartburn in Kargil at this development."

Terming the PDP-BJP alliance as "an alliance of contradiction", state CPI(M) leader Mohd Yusuf Tarigami said the two parties had "something to hide" as they did not come out with their Common Minimum Programme (CMP) before the swearing-in ceremony, as was promised.