NEW DELHI: As the India-Pakistan slugfest continued on Wednesday over the status of Hurriyat Conference in their bilateral agenda, focus panned on a crucial domestic constituency that Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be eyeing in the mayhem — the abrogation of Article 370 that accords Jammu and Kashmir special status.

The Indian Express described as defiant Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit’s pointed defence of his meetings with Hurriyat leaders ahead of the now abandoned foreign secretary level talks. The envoy said in his media interactions that the “bottomline” for Indo-Pak talks on Kashmir issue was to engage all stakeholders.

This evoked a sharp reaction from India which accused it of adopting an approach different to the one laid down by Shimla Agreement.

Also read: India’s ‘self-goal’ on Kashmir triggers debate

Within hours of Mr Basit justifying his meeting with the Kashmiris on the grounds of engaging with all stakeholders, India’s foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said that as per Shimla Agreement it was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and any other approach will “not yield results”.

Article 370 in crosshairs of BJP government

The fresh round of sparring has raised doubts about the prospects of early resumption of the dialogue process for bringing the strained ties back on track, the Express said.

“We need to engage with all stakeholders. It is not a question of either or, as far as we are concerned. We are engaging with India to find peaceful ways,” Mr Basit said during an interaction with foreign journalists here while reacting to India’s stand that Pakistan should either choose dialogue with separatists or Indian government.

Justifying his meeting with the Kashmiri separatists, Mr Basit said: “We strongly believe that our interaction is helpful to the process itself. It is helpful to find peaceful solution to the problem. It is important to engage with all stakeholders. So that is the bottomline for us.”

Mr Akbaruddin said: “After 1972 and the signing of the Shimla Agreement by the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, there are only two ‘stakeholders’ on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir — the Union of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

“This is a principle which is the bedrock of our bilateral relations. This was reaffirmed in the Lahore Declaration of 1999 between Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Vajpayee,” Mr Akbaruddin said, asserting “that an approach that is different to the one laid down by the Shimla Agreement and Lahore Declaration does not yield results”.

India had called off the talks between foreign secretaries slated for August 25, telling Pakistan to choose between an Indo-Pak dialogue or hobnobbing with the separatists.

According to an analysis in Kolkata-based Telegraph, the decision to call off the talks has more to do with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s domestic agenda and less to do with the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy.

At the BJP headquarters Mr Modi’s handpicked party president Amit Shah is fine-tuning “Mission 44+”, which cannot realistically co-exist with any breakthroughs in relations with Islamabad.

“Mission 44+” is the codename for Mr Shah’s strategy to repeat the BJP’s good showing in the recent Lok Sabha elections in Jammu and Kashmir when assembly elections are held later this year, the Telegraph said.

The BJP, it said, hoped to capture power in the state and, in tandem with its majority government at the centre, make a daring effort to achieve the party’s long-cherished dream of abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution.

The party mobilised its core across the country during the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls on a plank of abolishing the special status for Jammu and Kashmir, among other issues.

Its 2014 manifesto unambiguously stated: “BJP reiterates its stand on the Article 370… and remains committed to the abrogation of this article.”

Detailed analysis of the Lok Sabha results, when the BJP won three of Jammu and Kashmir’s six parliamentary seats, suggests that if that performance is repeated or improved upon, the party could hypothetically come out of the assembly elections with 37 seats from the Jammu region and four from Ladakh, the daily said.

The Jammu, Ladakh and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats, which the BJP won this year, make up a total of 41 assembly segments. If the party bags these seats, it will only need three more to form a government in the state.

Mr Shah’s strategy has been codenamed “Mission 44+” because the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly has 87 seats and 44 constitutes a simple majority.

The paper’s conversations with informed sources indicate that “the BJP’s specialised cells, which function like think tanks, have concluded that if relations with Islamabad improve before the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, any attempt to tamper with Article 370 under BJP governments in Srinagar and New Delhi will leave Prime Minister Narendra Modi vulnerable to charges of damaging India-Pakistan relations.”

However, if relations are frozen in the run-up to the formation of a new government in Srinagar

and Article 370 is tampered with in an atmosphere where India and Pakistan are already in a bitter but subdued state of hostility, the fallout is likely to be much less severe, the Telegraph’s analysis said.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2014