PDP-BJP alliance in Kashmir on the rocks

The countdown may well have begun for the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir with the Peoples Democratic Party’s Srinagar MP Tariq Hameed Karra quitting the party as well as his Lok Sabha seat.

The coming together of the PDP-BJP in February last year was like an inter-community, inter-caste and inter-religious marriage which was not exactly fawned upon by the elders and hard-liners on either side, but compulsions of realpolitik and an element of romantic optimism solemnized a union of opposites amidst much hype and fanfare.
Eighteen months later, the marriage is on the rocks and heading for a messy divorce. Both sides no longer seem to be making any effort to keep the spark alive in the relationship. 
The resignation of PDP MP Karra has the potential to trigger a chain of events which will gather its own momentum, causing the BJP-PDP alliance to implode.
Karra’s emotive statements equating the alliance government with the Nazi regime and accusing Prime Minister Modi of pushing an agenda of intolerance and Hinduization, will have an impact on the PDP cadre. By exhorting fellow PDP lawmakers to follow his example he has made chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s already difficult position more precarious.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, thousands of angry demonstrators defied a curfew in Indian Kashmir to attend the funeral of a schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets, sparking clashes with security forces across the restive region.
The 11-year-old boy’s body was found late Friday in the outskirts of the main city of Srinagar, in Harwan, after security forces used pellet guns to break up protesting crowds despite the government vowing to replace the weapons.
Kashmir has been hit by months of violent protests over the killing of a young militant by Indian soldiers.
Government forces fired tear gas shells Saturday to disperse stone-throwing protesters, triggering more clashes in at least half a dozen places across Srinagar and southern parts of the Himalayan valley.
“Forces responded when large crowds defied restrictions. Many were injured on both sides during the clashes that followed,” a local police officer told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
Another police official said nearly 100, mostly protesters, had been injured in the latest protests.
The killing of the schoolboy took the death toll to 81 in the worst violence to hit the Muslim-majority territory since 2010.

Source: Arab News