Chapter 51 #2
“Leaving from Shimla. Don’t make any decisions yet. I have meetings with KDP coordinators and some Awaami contacts. We will find a way to put out this fire. If it comes to No Confidence, Adil was talking about going shopping.”
Atharva chuckled.
“Safeguard the Secretariat first, Atharva. Do something to prevent her from coming.”
“I will.”
————————————————————
Seeing Amaal had flown far from his mind as Samar landed in Srinagar and threw himself into managing this crisis.
He spent two days in Srinagar going in and out of stakeholder meetings, and then flew to Jammu to bolster the support there.
He needed to get all their partners, members and cadre leaders to stand behind them first, give Atharva the solidarity from the party if it came to a No Confidence motion in the Assembly.
And the route that Momina Aslam was taking, she was headed straight there.
She was headed there trying to break up the KDP and Janta MLAs.
Massive shopping had already started from Awaami. Truckloads of money were being offered.
Samar was brandishing his mix of warnings and threats at every level if simple conversations didn't work. So far, it was working.
His next stop was Leh, and that was a safe zone. Sonam had already rallied the entire Ladakh cadre and Samar only needed to sit down and show his face as the KDP President to bolster confidence.
It was on the 4th of June that he returned to Srinagar, and collided with the biggest shock of his life.
“Samar Bhaiya.” One of his MLAs from Kathua blocked his path just as he was walking into the Boulevard Road headquarters.
“Kaise hai, Dilerji?[150]”
“Samar Bhaiya,” he passed him a file, smiling big. “Dekh lijiye, urgent hai.[151]” He was a middle-aged, non-nonsense advocate from Kathua. Never smiled.
Samar nodded, smiling back.
He strode into the headquarters and went straight to his office. A group of members and secretaries followed him in but he smiled at them all — “Let’s meet in half an hour?”
They retreated.
“I am turning into Atharva,” he muttered to himself as the door shut and his smile fell. He opened the file and a letter confronted him.
Samar pulled out his mobile and dialled Faris.
“Hello.”
“I have a job for you urgently. Find out if Qureshi has majority MLAs to overthrow Atharva.”
“What?”
Samar had never heard Faris talk back, or show shock.
“Find out. You have an hour.”
“Ok.”
Samar ended the call and pressed for Atharva.
“Yes?”
“I need you to come to the Headquarters.”
“Why?”
“Just come.”
“You come to the Secretariat, I will have to get the entire convoy.”
Qureshi would be there. If all of them convened there, he would know.
“No, you come. Don’t tell anyone why you are coming.”
“What’s going on?”
“Say that you have a closed-door meeting with me about Ladakh, if anyone that you can’t hide from asks.”
A pause. Then — “Ok.”
Samar made two more similar calls.
————————————————————
Zorji, Adil and Atharva sat in front of him, reading from a transcript of Momina Aslam’s interview where she had called Atharva a traitor. Atharva finished reading it, and Samar passed him the letter.
Atharva adjusted his glasses and frowned, reading. Samar knew the contents by heart by now. And he also knew it was confirmed.
To
The Hon’ble Governor of Jammu & Kashmir
Raj Bhavan, Srinagar
Subject: Withdrawal of Confidence in Shri Atharva Singh Kaul as Chief Minister
Date: 4th June, 2017
Hon’ble Governor,
With deep respect for Shri Atharva Singh Kaul’s legacy and leadership, we, the undersigned MLAs of the Kashmir Development Party (KDP), wish to formally communicate our loss of confidence in his continuing as Chief Minister.
Recent events, including the ongoing investigation into his conduct during the PoK visit and concerns over transparency in governance have caused a growing rift between the leadership and legislative wing.
This decision has not been taken lightly. Shri Kaul has been a pillar of this party, but we believe a change is now essential to restore credibility and cohesion in both the government and the party.
We request that the necessary constitutional process be initiated to determine the future leadership of the House.
Sincerely,
Meer Hasan Qureshi
CC:
- Speaker, J&K Legislative Assembly
- KDP Party Working Committee
“Where did you get this from?”
Samar looked at Adil. Adil glanced at Zorji, perched at the head of the table, far in the distance. They had all gotten whiffs from different sources but Samar had gotten the letter in its entirety.
Atharva reached for his mobile and called somebody. Samar was surprised Atharva hadn’t gotten whiff of this. Usually, he was the one who got intel before most of them.
“Who are you calling?” Adil asked.
Atharva did not get a response and dialled another number, silent.
“Salim Asghar Azad?” Adil cued.
Atharva began to text, clearly not getting any response from his head of MLAs.
“Qureshi is in touch with him,” Samar told him.
Atharv’s fingers froze on his screen.
“Then why isn’t this letter signed yet?”
“Qureshi did not want to make a scene if you left quietly. He says he has majority signatures ready, including enough of your MLAs.”
“And what about your MLAs?” Atharva asked.
“Adil’s and my MLAs together won’t stand against the number that Qureshi has.”
“How did he get my ML…” Atharva stopped. “Where is Qureshi?”
“I don’t know.”
Atharva stared at him. Was it distrust again? For fuck’s sake!
“You knew about this, Adil?” He asked, not taking his eyes off him.
“No.”
“And you?” He pushed. “When did you know?”
“I got this letter an hour ago.”
“And you handed it to me now?”
“One of the MLAs passed it on to me. I had to check its authenticity first. ”
“You are the party president. How was this happening under your nose?”
Samar had no answer. He was ashamed of that. He had spent too much time in Himachal and too little in Kashmir.
“Zorji?”
“How many dissenting?” Zorji asked. Atharva glanced at him, brows raised.
“At this moment,” Samar relayed. “27 from KDP. That’s more than half. Awaami will obviously support because this means their Vote of No Confidence against Atharva passes. I also have news that Janta Party might support the dissent.”
“In its entirety?” Atharva questioned.
“That’s the news I got.” Janta members did not want to sit in a sinking ship, however much Yogesh Patel supported them.
Atharva reached for his phone again and paused.
“We knew it might come to this, Atharva,” Zorji reasoned. “When we sat for that hearing, with the answers you chose to give, we knew you might have to vacate this position.”
“But that was if the SIT ruled against me. This is…” he paused.
“Qureshi hasn’t gotten signatures yet. But he has planted this letter and gotten unofficial nods. That means if you resign, this letter will never see the light of day.” Zorji laid out the coup.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Do you have the power to bring your MLAs back, Atharva?”
“We can try,” Adil asserted. “If Azad is not taking your call, let me try.”
Samar sat back as Azad picked up Adil’s call.
He sat through the unyielding conversation that first Adil, then Atharva had with the MLA.
And in Atharva’s inability to convince him to stand by him, Samar saw Atharva learn the cruellest lesson of life — that nobody stops when you fall.
Samar had fallen so many times and seen nobody around stopped, that he did not find this shocking.
The room fell silent.
“I will resign.” Atharva declared, and surprised Samar. He was jumping into the ditch for Iram, Jammu & Kashmir and the country. Without a fight.
Samar was the first to get up and leave the room.
If there was a change in leadership at the CM level, a lot had to happen at the cadre level to keep the party from falling apart.
Qureshi was doing enough damage as it is with his divisive instigations.
Samar did not want the MLAs and members of four different factions of KDP to start fighting.
“Samar!”
He turned.
And there she was. At the balustrade of the stairs he was about to take. There were people around them, eyes on them.
“Amaal.” Her name came out as a whisper. Her eyes, those blue, cerulean eyes were looking at him like she welcomed his face. Samar didn’t know what his expression was, although, he hoped he could school it in this public space.
“Where are you going?”
He glanced at the closed conference room door, then back at her. He stepped closer, lowering his voice — “Prepare.”
Her eyes widened. He nodded. “I will try and come to you before leaving for Himachal.”
“It’s ok, don’t push yourself. Is everything ok?” She eyed his face, his neck.
“Better.” He rasped, needing to gather her close, needing to get not a whiff but the full force of her smell of lilies. “You?”
“Swamped, but good.”
“Hmm.”
She smiled. “Hmm.”
Samar stepped back from her, turned, and rushed down the steps, needing to turn around and see her once but forcing himself to keep going without a backward glance.
————————————————————
Fifteen days turned the entire politics of Jammu & Kashmir on its head.
Atharva resigned. Qureshi swore in. And the SIT investigation took a backseat as per Yogesh Patel’s promise. If Atharva was not in constant public eye, it would be easier to settle everything until public memory moved on.
Samar finally flew back to Himachal, without meeting Amaal, because even though he had an hour on the day he left, she was in a soup — managing the newly sworn-in CM in a government that was largely still Atharva’s.
Samar knew a change in cabinet, bureaucrats, designations was incoming.
Qureshi had given him feelers to join in too.
Health and Housing were still Janta’s, but Qureshi had offered Commerce.
Samar had declined.
He parked his car outside the Dak bungalow that HDP rented from one of its local Shimla members. This had been his residence over the last few months. Samar pulled out his mobile and saw Amaal had texted a couple of hours ago. He must have been on the plane.
AMAAL
You left without meeting me?
SAMAR
I’ll be back soon
AMAAL
Typing…
Then nothing. She went offline.
Samar looked up at the dark sky. Stars were pricking through but they weren’t enough. He was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough. He had felt a little perverse pleasure for a moment when Atharva had to step down. How was that good?
Samar unlocked the double doors, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.
He switched on the lights, and the large hall with a double ceiling lit to life.
Even the chandelier lit up. He switched it off, and all the rest of the lights except a small corridor bulb.
He set his bag down, took off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen, turning on the faucets to let the water and debris flow.
The fridge was empty because he had emptied it before leaving Shimla.
He had gotten a bag of fruits. He washed the apples and cut them, then peeled a banana and bit into it.
He made a mental note to call up the milkman and ask him to resume tomorrow, as well as the newspaper guy.
He would also need to call the cook to resume.
His knee was knocking bad today. The fatigue of the last three weeks fell onto him. His mind was tired, his body more so. And he realised that it would be one year to the explosion. It would also be one year to Yathaarth’s birth.
His mobile beeped with a battery drained alert and he put it to charge in the hall.
Samar finished his fruits and went to his bedroom.
It was not as bare as he was used to, because it had come furnished.
But it was just as the owner had left it.
He emptied the clothes from his bag and threw them into the washing machine, then stripped out of his clothes and stepped inside the shower.
He had stopped looking at himself in the mirror again.
Once upon a time he didn’t care for it, now, he was consciously trying to not care about it.
Samar pulled on his loose shorts, threw his night medicines into his mouth, gulped water and fell onto the bed. He went to sleep before the next thought could hit him.
He woke up to the shrill pinging of his mobile in the distance.
He squinted. Where was he? Samar looked around, and figured out which city, which house, which room he was in.
His mobile was still ringing. He got off the bed and limped out into the hall.
The small light guided his way because he couldn’t navigate this place in the dark yet.
His knee was hurting and his back felt extra numb.
He rubbed it, feeling the dry, scaly skin scrape his palm.
The muscles were sore. Age was catching up.
Or was it the abuse his body had taken in the last twenty years?
His mobile went silent, then picked up again. Samar reached it in time to see Atharva’s name.
He disconnected it from the charger.
“Hello?”
“Were you sleeping?”
Samar pulled the mobile down to squint at the time.
“It’s 3.30, what do you think?”
“I am being externed.”
“What?”
“I have to leave Srinagar in the next 72 hours.”
“Why?”
“I met Singh sir today to destroy some memos, and they raided his house.”
“What memos?! Are you stupid?”
Atharva was silent. Probably humbled.
“Ok, listen,” Samar tried to get his mind to work. “Is Jammu fair game?”
“No, the state is off limits. It is either Delhi or Shimla.”
“Come to Shimla.”
“Iram and Arth are also with me.”
“We were in the process of finalising leases for three bungalows. I will speed it up tomorrow. Delhi will be too far for you from Srinagar. How long will this last?”
Atharva went silent again.
“Atharva!”
“Undecided.”
“Ok. There is a house here, where I am staying. If nothing else, come here. I’ll shift out.”
“I’ll book a hotel until a lease is finalised.”
“How many years did I live in your house?”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Again he went silent.
“You have been my backbone for a very long time, let me do whatever I can.”
Silence again.
“Atharva, you are coming here with your wife and a baby. A hotel will not be ok, even if temporarily. Let me worry about the arrangements. There is a big bungalow that is on the lease list. It’s Victorian or something, with a garden.
Iram will be comfortable there, and Arth will also be safe.
Just give me until tomorrow morning to get back to you on the details. ”
“Mail me the lease agreement, I will lease it.”
“The Intent To Lease is already signed between HDP and the owner. If you want, you sublet it from HDP.”
“Ok.”
“Don’t worry, everything will be managed.”
Samar never thought he would say this to Atharva again.
“I will handle it.”
“Thank you.”