Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that only Prime Minister Narendra Modi could resolve the ongoing crisis in Kashmir, reported PTI. “I say today with authority... If anyone can find a solution to Jammu and Kashmir problem, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi... He has a strong mandate. Whatever decision he takes, the country will support him,” said Mufti while addressing a gathering after inaugurating a flyover in Jammu.

The chief minister, who has praised former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee several times, again said that it was him and her father Mufti Mohammed Sayeed who had started a “chapter of peace” in the Valley in 2002. She blamed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for the unrest and added the current situation in the Valley was the result of pent-up anger. “There was pent-up lava and it started to come out during the street protests in 2008, 2009 and 2010. That lava has now spread in the Valley and we are facing it,” The Times of India quoted the chief minister as saying.

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Comparing Manmohan Singh with Narendra Modi, Mufti said the former prime minister never had the courage to visit Pakistan while the current PM’s decision to go to Lahore on December 25, 2015, was a sign of strength. “He went to Lahore and met the prime minister of Pakistan. This is not a sign of weakness but an indication of strength and power,” Mufti added, according to PTI.

Before this, Mufti had met Modi in Delhi in April to discuss the deteriorating law and order situation in the state. The two leaders decided that peace talks could only be held in a conducive atmosphere. Mufti said Modi had assured her that better times lay ahead for the state. “Modiji repeatedly said that he would follow [Atal Bihari] Vajpayeeji’s footsteps, whose policy is of reconciliation not confrontation,” she had said.

The coalition government of Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party has been fighting militancy and widespread protests in Kashmir since July last year when Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was gunned down. There have been reports of strained ties between the two alliance partners, especially in the wake of massive violence after the Srinagar bye-election. Eight people had been killed in clashes with security personnel, amid very low voter turnout, allegations of the Army using a man as a human shield and reports of attacks on Kashmiri students in other parts of the country.