Srinagar, March 18: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has invited Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for talks on Tuesday in what seems the Congress’s last-ditch effort to save its ruling alliance with the People’s Democratic Party in Jammu and Kashmir.

Chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has already been summoned to Delhi.

Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Tariq Hameed Qarra said PDP leader Mufti is leaving for Delhi on Tuesday. “The PM has requested Mufti sahib to talk to him before taking any decision on withdrawing the support to the government and he has accepted the request.”

“If our demands are not met, I am in favour of a pullout but our party will announce the decision of March 25,” Qarra added.

The crisis in Kashmir deepened after the Prime Minister rejected the PDP’s demand for demilitarisation, prompting the party “to consider” pulling out of the alliance. “The PM’s rejection has pushed us to the wall. Either we have to pull out or there has to be some honourable way out,” a senior PDP leader said.

The party continued with its defiant stand, boycotting the third cabinet meeting in a row.

A source said the meeting between Mufti and Singh will be a one-to-one. “If Azad is at the meeting, Mufti will send his daughter (PDP president Mehbooba Mufti) for the talks,” a party insider said.

A PDP leader admitted the Prime Minister’s polite “no’’ to demilitarisation has “not come as a surprise”. “But we have gone too far in raising these issues — demilitarisation and withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act — leaving us no option but to take some decision,” the leader confided.

PDP senior leader Ghulam Hassan Mir said the party’s political affairs committee is meeting next week to discuss “the contents” of the Prime Minister’s letter.

Singh, in his letter to Mufti, had mentioned intelligence inputs that suggested a spurt in militant activity in the coming months, citing this as the reason for not accepting the PDP’s demands. But he assured Mufti to review troops reduction next summer.