(From top) A VHP activist protests in Jammu against the call to cancel the controversial allotment of land to the Amarnath shrine board. PDP president Mehbooba Mufti at a news conference in Srinagar on Saturday. (PTI, AP)

Srinagar, June 28: The People’s Democratic Party today withdrew support to coalition partner Congress in Jammu and Kashmir, leaving the Ghulam Nabi Azad government a minority in the House and virtually an outcaste.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti announced the pullout after six days of state-wide protests against the allotment of forest land to the Amarnath shrine board, with the street violence leaving three dead and hundreds injured.

“The situation brooks no delay in government responsibility to revoke the land diversion order. Unfortunately, the government has not acted,” Mehbooba said. “It is our moral responsibility to disassociate from the government without further delay.”

With the departure of the PDP’s 19 MLAs, the Congress is way short of the majority mark of 44 in the 87-member Assembly. Azad’s party has 21 MLAs and the backing of eight Independents who are designated associate members and two CPM members. A handful of other Independents are also supporting the government.

The chief minister now has nowhere to look for support to save his seat and government.

A break between the Congress and the PDP before the upcoming Assembly elections was always on the cards, but it could not have come at a worse time, or for worse reasons, for the ruling party. For the PDP, it could not have come at a better time, or for better reasons.

Egged on by his daughter Mehbooba, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has long been wanting to break free of the constraints of a coalition with the Congress and expand his own base in the Valley and beyond.

The Congress has, meanwhile, been toying with the idea of switching partners and allying with the Abdullahs, Omar and his father Farooq, of the main Opposition National Conference (NC).

That appears a non-option at the moment because the break with the PDP has come on a communally sensitive issue.

Even if it wanted to, the NC, which has 24 MLAs, would not be able to ally with the Congress, or save the Azad government from sinking on the Assembly floor. It will then be seen in the Valley as having “sold out” to a party accused of “betraying” Kashmiri interests.

As one political observer in Srinagar said: “The National Conference has been fighting to regain credibility in the Valley; jumping to the aid of the Congress at this stage will be suicidal.”

Besides, the NC too has been demanding revocation of the land transfer. NC president Omar Abdullah said he would tell his MLAs they had been elected to remain in the Opposition, so they should not offer overt or covert support to any party.

But he added: “Withdrawing from the government does not absolve the PDP of its mistakes. It was PDP ministers Muzaffar Baig and Qazi Afzal who had cleared the land deal.”

Mehbooba claimed her ministers had “strongly opposed” the “land diversion”, but the pullout was clearly a damage-control move since part of the street anger is directed against her party.

The PDP chief said Union home minister Shivraj Patil and the national security adviser had contacted her with a request not to withdraw support. Mehbooba is believed to have told them that “people are getting killed every day” and this could undo the “good work done by us” in the past five years.

The Congress and the PDP took over the reins in November 2002 with an agreement that each would hold the chief minister’s post for three years.

The streets continued to seethe through the day, with police firing at stone-throwing mobs at several places, leaving five wounded. The caning – and the stoning by the other side – injured dozens more.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Yasin Malik, who was leading a march, was injured when clashes broke out with the police.

Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, who is back from Pakistan, cut short his stay in Delhi and headed straight to Syed Ali Shah Geelani for discussions. “The protests will continue so long as the land transfer is not cancelled,” the Mirwaiz said.