The Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party government headed by Mehbooba Mufti has gone out of power but there is hardly anyone to mourn its exit in any of the state’s three regions—Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

The three-year-old ruling coalition fell apart on 19 June, when the BJP withdrew its support to Mehbooba Mufti.

Although the BJP is celebrating its action by giving several reasons for having thrown Mehbooba out of power but the common people in the Jammu region, where the BJP drew strength, are taking their claims with a pinch of salt.

This is probably because the BJP leadership virtually forgot the pre-poll promises including the most prominent of removing political discrimination of Jammu and Ladakh regions. They allowed Mehbooba to have her own way to appease the valley.

Similarly, no tears have been shed in Kashmir on Mehbooba having been thrown out of power by the BJP. The people in Kashmir had never relished the PDP joining hands with the BJP to come in power. This was so because Mehbooba’s father Mufti Sayeed had pitched his Assembly election campaign in 2014 against Prime Minister Narendera Modi as a result of which the electorate felt having been cheated when he joined hands with the same BJP to form the government in 2015.

There is resentment also in the Ladakh region against the BJP for having failed to implement its commitment of granting union territory (UT) status to the area. It was for the first time that the people voted for the BJP candidate during the Lok Sabha elections in the hope that their long standing demand for UT would be met.

Soon after coming out of power, Mehbooba Mufti tried to revert to her earlier hardline by announcing that “muscular” action would not work in Kashmir. She was probably hinting towards the Operation All Out that has been launched by the security forces to eliminate the Pakistan-backed terrorists for whom her party had been demanding extension of ceasefire by the Modi government.

Interestingly, other Kashmir centric political parties have also joined her in opposing “muscular” action in Kashmir. Mehbooba’s call for reconciliation and dialogue for return of peace in Kashmir was on Wednesday endorsed by the National Conference leader Omar Abdullah in the meeting of core committee of the party, where he stressed that the main focus of the government should be to provide relief to the people of the state through a reconciliation rather than confrontational approach and to work towards creating a peaceful, positive atmosphere in the state.

Political observers point out that restoring peace might not be an easy task for Governor NN Vohra as there were wheels within wheels and Mehbooba government had miserably failed to bridle the separatists who were keeping the pot boiling in Kashmir by issuing venomous statements daily against India and the security forces.

The house arrest of the pro-Pakistan Syed Ali Shah Geelani was more of cosmetic as he was allowed to address people at funerals of terrorists whom he would call “martyrs”.

However, Mehbooba is playing her cards cautiously amidst speculations among political circles that the BJP has not completely severed relations with her as the Assembly has not been dissolved but kept in suspended animation leaving the doors open for restoring the coalition after the next year’s Lok Sabha polls.