Jammu, November 10
People's Conference president Sajjad Lone’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday has underlined the message that the BJP is taking Kashmir seriously not only for the election purposes beyond it.

Sajjad Lone

Prime Minister has been watching Kashmir events closely. His meeting with Lone assumes significance.

Sajjad Lone has his own version that he had met the Prime Minister to “discuss Kashmir issue” or the problems of the people in the Valley. He had already made it clear that “Modi is a factor in the national politics and his impact on Kashmir could not be ignored.”

Lone, whose People’s Conference is an ardent champion of the "nationhood" for Kashmir, as envisaged in his document “Achievable Nationhood”, which he had prepared after meeting the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January 2006, is understood to have explained what the Kashmir situation is and how it can be resolved. But the political bonhomie between the two sides was an underlining factor. The meeting at this time has a backdrop. He had met the BJP leaders like Ram Madhav, J P Nadda and Avinash Rai Khanna and others before. Today’s meeting has set off speculations on the political landscape too as to what would be the shape of the relations between the two parties after the elections.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti told The Tribune: "It is just a meeting. In democracy everyone has a right to meet PM. It is not that this meeting is going to cause some political explosion in the state."

The ruling National Conference was also dismissive of Sajjad’s meeting with PM, saying "during elections lot many political leaders meet other party leaders. We don’t attach much significance to it," said NC spokesperson Junaid Mattoo. He added: "We don’t think that there is any need to react in isolation on this meeting."

It is interesting, however, that till date BJP has not announced candidates for the constituencies in Kupwara district constituencies barring Karnah. People's Conference has its stronghold in Kupwara district. It cannot just be a coincidence that the BJP leaders and Sajjad Lone were meeting and the arrangement of seat adjustments was also being put into place.