BJP National GS  Ram Madhav arrives in J&K to discuss cabinet seat sharing arrangement

#Kashmir: #BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav arrived in Jammu on Friday evening to hold consultations on cabinet seats share arrangement. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti is to take the oath as chief minister on Monday.

Ram Madhav held a closed-doors meeting with select senior party leaders at the resident of Nirmal Singh, the BJP’s nominee for the post of deputy chief minister. The meeting was attended by Jammu and Kashmir state unit president Sat Sharma, MP Jugal Kishore Sharma and organising secretary Ashok Koul.

According to the sources Ram Madhav arrived in a special plane around 6PM at Jammu airport. The last normal flight takes off from Jammu at 415PM. He is expected to fly back later on Friday.

The BJP is insisting on equal representation in the cabinet as well as some key portfolios, though the PDP has yet to comment on their alliance partner’s demands. Sources said it was because of this insistence that the swearing-in ceremony of Mehbooba has been delayed by a few days.

“The leaders will finalise the list of the portfolios and the candidates which will be discussed by the central leadership of the party. It will then hold final deliberations with Mehbooba Mufti before the list is send to the Governor,” said a senior BJP leader.

A section of the BJP leadership also believes that there might not be any change major change in the portfolios and old list of cabinet may be repeated at least initially and changes can be made a bit latter.

The two-day executive meeting of the state unit of the BJP is starting from April 1 in Jammu. The party’s state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna and senior leaders of the party are arriving to attend the meeting.

The meeting will conclude a day before Mehbooba Mufti is to take oath as the chief minister on April 4. Even though the executive meet is a normal affair but it has assumed importance as the party is claiming to get equal representation in the cabinet.

“The meeting will discuss the political developments and will pass a resolution on economic and political state of the Jammu and Kashmir,” said BJP leader Pawan Khajuria.

The executive meeting is also likely to discuss the agenda of the governance and how to go about it especially with regard to the safeguarding the interests of the Jammu region and also to keep a check on the separatist forces .  Reports by ht,