Malik's statement over govt formation stripped BJP naked: JKNPP

The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) said Wednesday Governor Satya Pal Malik's remarks over recent attempt of government formation in the state by the BJP has left the party fully exposed for its "duplicity and dishonest" intentions.

Last week, the governor defended his decision to dissolve the state assembly and said had he looked to Delhi, he would have had to install a government led by Sajad Lone, and history would have remembered him as a "dishonest man".

"Malik's statement over the government formation in the state has stripped the BJP naked. The BJP stood fully exposed for its duplicity and dishonest intentions by the honest confession made by the governor," JKNPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh said.

Malik had abruptly dissolved the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly last week after the Peoples Democratic Party staked claim to form a government with the backing of rival National Conference and the Congress.

This was followed by another bid from the two-member People's Conference led by Sajad Gani Lone which claimed the support of the BJP and 18 legislators from other parties.

The governor's statement has spilled the beans and revealed the BJP in its true colours, Singh said.

"His sensational disclosure had created ripples in the political landscape of the state. No further proof of BJP's demagoguery and unprincipled politics was required," Singh said, adding the governor's clarification should serve as an "eye opener" for the people of Jammu, especially its supporters and allied organisations.

Amused over the BJP's "unexplained fondness" for Lone, deliriously oblivious of his separatist antecedents, Singh questioned the saffron party over its policies of 'die hard nationalism' and 'zero tolerance' loudly proclaimed by it in the past.

"By promoting Lone, the BJP had not only comprised with its age old philosophy but betrayed the collective sentiment of Dogras who gave it 25 seats on the strength of its slogans of giving a Jammu based chief minister," he said.

He said, "By sponsoring Lone as the chief ministerial candidate, the BJP had admitted its "political bankruptcy" and its "unmitigated lust for power" thereby losing its left over steam and sheen in its political bastion.