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Onkar Singh in Srinagar
Former finance minister and senior Congress leader Dr Manmohan Singh will arrive in Srinagar on Saturday afternoon to hold talks with Mutfi Mohammad Sayeed's Peoples Democratic Party on the formation of a new government in Jammu and Kashmir.
Congress general secretary Ambika Soni and the party's state unit chief Ghulam Nabi Azad will accompany Dr Manmohan Singh.
Though the venue of the talks has not been confirmed so far, it is most likely to be the Mufti's residence in Nowgam.
On Friday, PDP's vice-president Muzzaffar Beg had met outgoing chief minister and senior National Conference leader Dr Farooq Abdullah and the two were closeted together for over ninety minutes.
Though Beg described it as a courtesy call, political observers saw it as a PDP move to exert pressure on the Congress. The Mufti's comment that the National Conference chief Omar Abdullah was like his son is also being seen in the same perspective.
So far, both the Congress and the PDP have not formally elected their leaders.
While the Mufti insists that the chief minister must belong to the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Congress would want the top post go to someone from the Hindu-majority Jammu.
Both the Congress and the PDP, meanwhile, are busy wooing the independents and smaller parties to strengthen their claims to the top post.
At one point the PDP had announced that six independents had joined the party. This, however, was later denied but a recently formed forum of the independents.
Congress leaders held meetings with Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party Bhim Singh to win his support in their bid to form the new government.
In another development, the People's Democratic Forum joined hands with the two Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLAs and agreed to a common-minimum programme.
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