New Delhi: Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed, who will be sworn in as the Chief Minister of a People's Democratic Party (PDP)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir on March 1, said on Friday that the coming together of the two parties is like meeting of North Pole and South Pole.
Emerging out of a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday morning, Sayeed told mediapersons that the former will participate in the swearing-in ceremony on March 1. The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) will be revealed in a press conference at 3 pm after the swearing-in ceremony.
Sayeed said he had met Modi in 2002 in the Chief Ministers' conference. He said the Jammu and Kashmir results are different as no party got clear majority. "For the last two months, a common ground was being prepared. This is meeting of North Pole and South Pole," he said.
He further said, "History has given us a chance to work for bringing peace and development in the state. We should respect the mandate of the people. In Jammu, BJP has got the mandate while in Kashmir, PDP has got it."
Sayeed said both he and Modi have a dream to make Jammu and Kashmir a peaceful place and Pakistan also has a role in this. "I want to repeat history. We will give the state a healing touch," he said.
The chief minister-designate said Modi knows the issue and he too knows it. This is a political alliance first and then it is governance. The BJP and PDP have found a common ground. One has to be flexible. The PM also believes that we have to run the government, he said.
After two months of Assembly election results where the state witnessed a fractured mandate, the PDP and the BJP have ironed out their differences and reached a consensus on a CMP that will form the basis of their unique coalition government in the state.
Sayeed's meeting with Modi was the final step in his return as the state's Chief Minister at the head of the coalition that will mark the first time ever for the BJP to be in power in the sensitive state.
Earlier, refusing to talk about the understanding on contentious issues like Article 370 which gives special status to the state, Sayeed said, "I won't talk on the issues. The CMP will come in black and white and the entire public of the country will see what we are doing." It is expected that Sayeed will invite Modi for the swearing-in function in Jammu.
The National conference with its 15 members had offered its support to PDP to form the government in the state which was rejected by PDP. Congress's Ghulam Nabi Azad too had floated the idea of a grand alliance between Congress, National Conference and PDP to keep away what he termed as "communal forces" away; however Azad's idea too was rejected by PDP.
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