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BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav on Wednesday said the decision of pulling out of ruling coalition with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir was a “difficult thing to digest” for him but it was

taken in the “larger interest” of people of the state and India. “I was one of the persons involved in bringing this alliance together. I worked for 40 days with (PDP leader) Haseeb Drabu on

building this agenda agreement. It was very difficult thing for me to digest when I was communicated that I should take this step now,” Madhav told CNN-News18 channel. Madhav also revealed

that there was “enough progress” in bringing the Hurriyat leadership to the negotiating table.  “I won’t say beyond that but the developments in the last two weeks have pushed us back to

square one,” he said. About the strains in the BJP-PDP alliance, Madhav said that political activists in the Valley were not playing any role (towards normalisation) even after suspension of

operations by the government  forces. “And then the insistence (by PDP) that you talk to Pakistan, extend suspension of operations even after broad daylight killing of journalist Shujaat

Bukhari, we felt there was a growing mismatch and for us the larger interest of the state and national integrity (are more important),” he said. Asked why Mehbooba Mufti — who was taken by

surprise — was not intimated in advance of the BJP’s decision to pull out as per the coalition dharma, he said he tried to contact her but “could not reach her”. “I did try to reach out to

her before we actually sent out the fax message to the Governor. We could not talk before we sent out the fax. But it is not breaking any coalition dharma. We came together, we decided to

part ways and sent this message to the Governor,” said Madhav, who is party in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir. Responding to Mehbooba Mufti’s statement that a “muscular policy” cannot work in

Jammu and Kashmir, he said that her political approach was different from that of the BJP’s.  “We disagree with her on the usage of this term (muscular policy). Innocent policemen being

killed, a journalist like Shujaat Bukhari being killed and not controlling all this — if this is the soft approach, I am sorry we don’t want that kind of a soft approach,” he said. Asked if

the Ramadan ceasefire did not go down well with the people of Jammu, the core voter group of the BJP, Madhav said: “It’s not about the people of Jammu. When innocents get killed, when

policemen get killed, when regular attacks happen on army and CRPF convoys and security forces are seen as to be not doing anything in retaliation, naturally a bad impression is created in

the rest of the country.” He said that the “risk” of suspending the operations was taken as a “goodwill gesture” but there was no reciprocation from the other side.