There is a peculiar audacity in political amnesia. A party can participate in a political experiment, preside over its consequences, leave its principal commitments unfulfilled, and later return to public life as though it had been a spectator all along. The PDP’s recent criticism of Omar Abdullah’s government is a striking example of this contradiction. The party now invokes constitutional rights, statehood, political dignity and the unfulfilled aspirations of Jammu and Kashmir. These are important questions. But before lecturing others on the politics of accountability, the PDP must confront its own record. 

The question is not whether Jammu and Kashmir has lost constitutional authority. It has. The question is why a party that once promised to protect that authority believes it can discuss the consequences without answering for its own political choices. 

The alliance that history cannot erase- In 2014, the PDP sought a mandate on the promise of safeguarding Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional position, pursuing its Self Rule framework, addressing alienation and creating a political environment conducive to reconciliation. 

Then came March 2015. The PDP entered into an alliance with the BJP, a party whose political position on Article 370 was fundamentally at odds with the constitutional assurances the PDP had made to its electorate. The two parties formalised their partnership through an Agenda of Alliance, promising reconciliation, dialogue with all stakeholders, confidence building measures and protection of Jammu and Kashmir’s political and economic interests. The PDP presented this arrangement as a political achievement. It was supposed to bridge differences, protect regional interests and create conditions for lasting peace. 

What followed was a very different story, one the PDP would rather leave untold. In the 2014 Assembly elections, the PDP won 28 seats and the BJP 25 in the 87-member Assembly. In March 2015, the two parties joined hands to form a government under an Agenda of Alliance comprising 66 action points. Yet, by the end of 2017, a contemporary Indian Express assessment found that several key commitments had made little or no progress. Promised dialogue with political stakeholders remained unrealised, the transfer of power projects to Jammu and Kashmir had not materialised, and commitments concerning refugees and other longstanding political issues remained unresolved. A subsequent report in June 2018 described most of the alliance’s political initiatives as unfinished business. After approximately 40 months in government, the alliance collapsed on 19 June 2018 when the BJP withdrew support. These are not merely allegations levelled by political opponents; they are part of the documented record of an alliance whose promises fell far short of expectations. The PDP cannot erase the record of the political choices it made when it held power. 

The BJP withdrew support on June 19, 2018. The PDP government fell. Governor’s Rule followed, and President’s Rule was imposed in December 2018. Jammu and Kashmir subsequently witnessed the abrogation of Article 370 and the reorganisation of the erstwhile state in August 2019. For constitutional accuracy, the abrogation was a decision of the Union government, undertaken under President’s Rule; it was not an act of the PDP led government. But the political chronology cannot be wished away. The PDP had chosen to enter an alliance with the BJP, failed to secure many of its stated  political objectives, and governed until that arrangement collapsed. The subsequent period of central rule became the setting in which the constitutional changes were carried out. 

The PDP was not the sole author of what happened in 2019. But neither can it erase its own place in the political sequence that preceded it. A party........

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