New Delhi: The Congress alleged on Tuesday that the BJP had ruined Kashmir and "run away" in its desperation to shift the entire blame on to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and argued that the "unnatural" alliance was doomed to meet a disastrous end.

The Congress kept its focus on the Centre's failures, anticipating the BJP's future strategy of using the decision to pull out of the coalition government to refurbish its nationalistic credentials.

More than the political fallout, the Opposition party referred to the bloody tenure that witnessed the maximum casualties among both security forces and civilians.

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said: "You can't run away after ruining and destroying Jammu and Kashmir. You can't shift the blame to the PDP alone. It is the Centre's abject failure. The BJP will have to face accountability."

Congress president Rahul Gandhi expressed similar feelings.

"The opportunistic BJP-PDP alliance set fire to J&K, killing many innocent people including our brave soldiers. It cost India strategically & destroyed years of UPA's hard work. The damage will continue under President's rule. Incompetence, arrogance & hatred always fails," he tweeted. #Azad specifically pointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role, alleging that a grand coalition of the PDP, National Conference and the Congress had been thwarted by his intervention.

"The best option after the fractured verdict was to let the regional parties rule. We were ready to support Mufti (Mohammed Sayeed) sahib for the full term. Even Omar (Abdullah) had extended unconditional support. But the local party (the PDP) was threatened... that they would not get support if they joined hands with other parties," Azad said.

The Congress leader ruled out any alliance with the PDP now.

"I had cautioned the Prime Minister then - that there is nothing in common between the BJP and the PDP and it (the tie-up) is going to be a Himalayan blunder. I predicted that Jammu and Kashmir would drift towards ruin," Azad said.

According to the Congress leader, the BJP had "no experience, no knowledge of Kashmir".

"The BJP built its political career through propaganda against Kashmir and they wanted to rule that region. After total failure, they are relying on excuses and falsehood to escape responsibility. The Centre is squarely responsible for this mess."

By claiming that the PDP was not allowed to choose its partner, Azad might have stirred a hornet's nest. Many in the Congress had been privately saying that a thoroughly discontented PDP had been suffering the BJP under duress and the late Mufti too would not have happily rejected the exceptional offer given by the Congress and the National Conference.

Azad on Tuesday publicly hinted at arm-twisting by the Centre to win allies in states.

The Congress had been extremely critical of the government, constantly reminding the Centre that the situation in the Valley was getting out of hand.

Although BJP general secretary Ram Madhav conceded on Tuesday that "terrorism and radicalism had increased alarmingly and the number of killings had also gone up", the central government never contested such charges over the past three years, boasting of a successful Kashmir policy.

Congress leaders often speculated that the BJP's nationalistic rhetoric was coming under stress because of its alliance with the PDP and that the experiment would be terminated before the next general election.

The BJP's position on the Constitution's Article 370 that accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir is diametrically opposite the PDP's, which traditionally took a hawkish approach on issues of autonomy and the extent of central intervention.

The Congress regularly highlighted the BJP's perceived hypocrisy as it played politics for decades over Article 370 and then aligned with the most strident protagonist of the special constitutional provision to taste power in the state for the first time.

The Congress had expected that the alleged opportunism would cause a loss of face to the BJP in the rest of the country.

The PDP not only wanted internal (with separatists) and external (with Pakistan) dialogue and a framework to revoke the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, it also advocated the extension of the Ramazan ceasefire.

The BJP leadership was adamant about initiating a tough line to assuage the feelings of its core constituency in the rest of the country.

The Congress now fears ruthless repression in Jammu and Kashmir instead of the "healing-touch" policy that brought peace during the Manmohan Singh regime.

While Kashmir has been in turmoil with an escalation of violence, repeated terror attacks on military installations and the rise in anti-India sentiments led to the government losing control alarmingly. This was manifest in the Anantnag Lok Sabha election that has been pending for over a year.

The turnout in the Srinagar Lok Sabha bypoll last year had been 7.1 per cent, the worst ever. But all this while the BJP never conceded there was a drift till it jumped off the sinking ship.