Just days after the BJP president Amit Shah said that the party needed 370 seats in parliament to fulfill its promises to voters on Ram Mandir and Article 370, Jitendre Singh, a union minister in PM Modi’s cabinet says the issue has been put on back-burner due to compulsion of ‘coalition dharma.’
Talking to news agency PTI, Singh said, “One thing is very clear, that we are in coalition in J&K, but we have ideological differences. We have to accept that and that is very true.”
“So, instead of raising contentious issues in a coalition, which is not in keeping with the coalition dharma, we have chosen to concentrate on dedicating ourselves to the development agenda which is the Common Minimum Programme (CMP),”Singh said.
On tuesday last week, Amit Shah had told reporters that unless the BJP had “370 seats in the parliament” there was no way his party could fulfill the poll promises on construction of Ram temple and repealing of Article 370 that gave special status to people of Kashmir.
BJP is alliance with the Kashmir’s regional party PDP in forming the government in the valley. Their decision to join hands to form the government had surprised many with many questioning the future of such alliance because their ideological differences on many issues.
Not so long ago, the Congress’ leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulab Nabi Azad told reporters in Hyderabad, “The survival of any coalition government which is not based on any principles is very difficult.”