Mufti takes oath as CM of PDP-BJP coalition govt in Jammu and Kashmir

March 1, 2015

Jammu, Mar 1: People's Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed took oath as the chief minister of a PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jammu's General Zorawar Singh Auditorium.

Sayeed takes oathThe two-month-long negotiations over formation of a coalition government culminated with the swearing-in ceremony as the 79-year-old Sayeed took oath along with 12 members each from the PDP and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While Mufti would be chief minister for the entire six-year tenure, BJP's Nirmal Singh will be the deputy chief minister. The two parties are also going to share the post of the assembly speaker and legislative council chairperson.

A multi-tier security has been put in place for the swearing-in ceremony at General Zorawar Singh Auditorium of Jammu University. The venue has been made out of bounds for the public and sanitation operation with metal detectors and sniffer dogs have been launched.

A team of the Special Protection Group had reached Jammu well in advance for the function. Over 200 to 300 municipal workers have been deputed to clean various areas of the city, particularly areas in and around Jammu University.

The coalition agenda - the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) - will be unveiled after the swearing-in ceremony at a joint press conference.

Talks between the two parties had centered on areas where they ideologically disagreed: Article 370, which accords J-K a special status, and the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act that gives overriding powers to security forces.

Sayeed was keen on an alliance with the BJP after last year's assembly elections threw up a hung verdict. He made his intentions known by rejecting outright the unconditional offers of support from the Congress and the National Conference (NC).

Sayeed's close aides say he had a bitter past experience with the Congress and an alliance with the NC was out of question.

The former J-K chief minister who has the distinction of being the first and till now the only Muslim home minister of the country wanted an alliance with the BJP given that the saffron party had swept the Jammu region, winning 25 seats while majority of his party's 28 seats came from the Kashmir Valley.

Perhaps he wanted to respect that mandate. That is the reason why Sayeed has been repeatedly stating that the alliance with the BJP was to win hearts and minds of the people of the state.

"The PM has a vision and I have a dream of making J-K an island of peace," Sayeed said after a meeting with PM Modi on Friday in New Delhi.

The PDP-BJP coalition came after a fractured verdict in the assembly polls held last year. While PDP was the largest party with 28 seats in the 87-member House, the BJP had won 25. The NC bagged 15 and Congress 12. The Sajjad Lone-led People's Conference won 2 seats.

The firming of a power sharing alliance between two diametrically opposite ideologies - Sayeed called the alliance as coming together of North Pole and South Pole - was a tough task for leaders of both the parties.

It would be equally challenging for them to keep it going for a full six-year term.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 12,2020

Bhopal, Mar 12: The Madhya Pradesh Congress on Thursday took a dig at Jyotiraditya Scindia, who broke ranks with the party and joined BJP on Wednesday, by pointing out that neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Amit Shah had not even put out as much a tweet to welcome him in the party, and construed it as "humiliation" for the "maharaja".

"Not even a tweet by Narendra Modi-ji or Amit Shah-ji to welcome Scindia-ji! Modi-ji, Shah-ji, at least do not do it so soon. It has not even been 24 hours yet and you guys have already started humiliating him...!" Madya Pradesh Congress tweeted in Hindi.

Taking a jibe at Mr Scindia, a member of the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior who ended his 18-year-long association with the Congress party on a bitter note, the state Congress said: "He is a maharaja, the one whose history is often mentioned by Shivraj-ji (former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan)."

On Wednesday, Jyotiraditya  Scindia joined BJP in New Delhi in the presence of party president JP Nadda. He had resigned from Congress a day earlier after meeting Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mr Scindia will file his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections on March 13. He is expected to go to Bhopal today.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 28,2020

Feb 28: The best economic tonic for the coronavirus shock is to contain its spread and worry about stimulus later, said Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India.

There’s little central banks can do, and while more government spending would help, the priority should be on convincing companies and households that the virus is under control, he said.

“People want to have a sense that there is a limit to the spread of this virus perhaps because of containment measures or because there is hope that some kind of viral solution can be found,” Rajan told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud Watts and Shery Ahn.

“At this point I would say the best thing that governments can do is to really fight the epidemic rather than worry about stimulus measures that comes later,” said Rajan, who is currently a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business.

The spread of coronavirus is pushing the world economy toward its worst performance since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Bank of America Corp. economists warned clients Thursday that they now expect 2.8% global growth this year, the weakest since 2009.

“We have moved from extreme confidence in markets to extreme panic, all in the space of one week,” said Rajan, who previously was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The virus outbreak will force companies to rethink supply chains and overseas production facilities, he said.

“I think we will see a lot of rethinking on this, coming on the back of the trade disruption, now we have this,” Rajan said. “Globalization in production is going to be hit quite badly.”

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
July 20,2020

New Delhi, Jul 20: India's COVID-19 case tally crossed the 11 lakh mark with the highest single-day spike of 40,425 new cases and 681 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Monday.

Total cases in the country now stand at 11,18,043 while the death toll is 27,497.
The Health Ministry said the total number of cases includes 3,90,459 active cases and 7,00,087 patients have been cured/discharged/migrated.

Maharashtra remains the worst affected state with 3,10,455 cases reported until Sunday.
Meanwhile, as per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1,40,47,908 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 19, of these 2,56,039 samples were tested yesterday.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.