New Delhi: A day after the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election result was declared, top bigwigs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had met the then outgoing CM Omar Abdullah in New Delhi to discuss the possibility of forging an alliance in the state.
Indian Express reported that Omar had met BJP president Amit Shah and the party's national general secretary Ram Madhav at an apartment in Delhi on the night of December 24. On the table was an offer of a Union Cabinet berth for Omar and the Deputy CM post for his party, National Conference, in the state.
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"We did try to form an alliance with National Conference. But that did not work out because Omar lacked conviction," a senior BJP leader said.
A National Conference leader claimed that the BJP leaders were initially not comfortable with PDP. "NC being a smaller party, BJP thought it could get its way, but this was unacceptable to Omar," the leader was quoted as saying in the report.
The very next day, Madhav had tried to downplay the reports of alliance talks between the two parties. "News about BJP leaders meeting NC leadership in Delhi baseless," he had tweeted. This was immediately retweeted by Omar.
National Conference sources said BJP even tried to 'bypass' Omar twice sending emissaries to meet his father Farooq Abdullah, who was in London at that time.
The National Conference (NC) had won 15 seats and BJP 25 seats in the 87-member Assembly. PDP had emerged as the single largest party by bagging 25 seats in the J&K polls.
