Mehbooba Mufti resigns as chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti resigned on Tuesday, putting the militancy-affected state into a political crisis after the Bharatiya Janata Party ended its alliance with her People’s Democratic Party, reports the Hindustan Times.
‘It has become untenable for the BJP to continue with the alliance in Jammu and Kashmir,’ said senior BJP leader Ram Madhav at a press conference in Delhi.
‘Given the security situation, and the need to handle the situation, we feel Governor’s rule was necessary,’ said Madhav, referring to the state possibly being under the central government’s administration. Eleven BJP ministers of the state government resigned, hours after meeting BJP president Amit Shah in Delhi.
The two parties formed a coalition government in 2015 after elections threw up a hung assembly, but they were ideologically divided on a range of issues. Their alliance came under strain in April after the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from the nomadic Muslim community of Bakarwals in Jammu’s Kathua district.
Two BJP ministers of the state government were dropped in a cabinet reshuffle after they took part in a rally demanding that the Central Bureau of Investigation take over the Kathua case. BJP president Amit Shah
The BJP’s decision comes after the central government announced on Sunday said it was discontinuing the suspension of military operations in Jammu and Kashmir as the holy Islamic month of Ramzan was over, and announced the full resumption of cordon-and-search and search-and-destroy operations in the state to prevent terror attacks. The ceasefire—the first such truce in the troubled state in more than 17 years—had been announced at the appeal of chief minister Mufti.