Omar Abdullah Tracked Top Secret Flight, And Smelled Something Cooking

Srinagar: An unscheduled flight landed in Srinagar on Wednesday evening, and like a ninja, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tracked it on his mobile phone and tweeted that something was cooking.

Not long after that, BJP leader Ram Madhav indeed met PDP's Mehbooba Mufti to try and end the stasis in Jammu and Kashmir over government formation. Even Mr Madhav had not let on to journalists that he was on his way to Srinagar for the meeting.

Mr Abdullah, who is one of India's most social media-savvy politicians, used the flight tracker app and detected the chartered plane that landed at an unusual time. He instantly tweeted about it.
 

Unscheduled flight VTJSG just landed in Srinagar after normal operation hours. Something is cooking with the PDP-BJP government formation.

— Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) February 17, 2016

@Junaid_Mattu it's amazing what the occasional alert on a flight tracker app will produce. Next time fly under the radar :-)

— Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) February 17, 2016

The meeting was kept a top secret until Mr Madhav quietly drove into Ms Mufti's Fair View home in Srinagar. Back in the capital, Mr Madhav's office insisted that "Sahab is in a meeting in Delhi." BJP sources say the party didn't want to attract media attention to the meeting as it would "divert the focus and start endless speculation."

Ms Mufti's PDP has set down tough terms to continue the alliance with the BJP. Ties between the ideologically opposite parties have never been easy, but they worsened after the death of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Mr Madhav and Ms Mufti met one-on-one for an hour. Sources say the meeting is likely to lead to an announcement in the next few days. "It's at a make or break point. It can go either way," a source told NDTV.

This was the first formal high-level meeting between the two parties over government formation in the state, where Governor's Rule has been in place since January 8, a day after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died.

In the meeting, the PDP leader reportedly asserted her demand for a timeline for the Agenda of Alliance that the two parties had agreed to when they came to power last year.