SRINAGAR, 17 October — Jammu and Kashmir Governor G.C. Saxena yesterday gave political parties time till Monday to form a new government following the state assembly poll.

The caretaker government of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah would continue in office till then, Saxena said in a four-line statement read out to reporters. It was believed here that governor’s rule would have been imposed in the state if a new government were not formed before the life of the previous assembly ends today. That has now apparently been put off for the time being.

The elections in September-October had thrown up a fractured verdict with no party winning a majority in the 87-member assembly.

Saxena asked the major players in the new assembly, including the National Conference, the Congress and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), to furnish documentary evidence before him by Oct. 21 proving that at least one of them or an alliance between them would be able to form the next government.

Earlier yesterday, Kashmir’s Congress chief Ghulam Nabi Azad, the party’s chief ministerial candidate, had called on the governor and sought more time to put together a coalition that would command at least a simple majority in the house.

The Congress and the regional PDP, which together have 36 seats in the 87-member assembly, have been unable to join forces because of differences over who should lead the probable coalition. An alliance of independent legislators and the Communist Party-Marxist (CPM), which together have seven seats in the assembly, had warned the parties to resolve their differences or risk alienating the 46 percent of Kashmiris who voted in defiance of a separatist boycott.

PDP leader Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and state Congress chief Ghulam Nabi Azad met yesterday to hammer out the dispute over which of them should replace Farooq. Azad said the meeting at Sayeed’s residence was “cordial” and dealt with the “stumbling blocks” on forming the government.

The National Conference, the defeated ruling party that is now the single largest party in the new assembly with 28 seats, has said Saxena should invite it first to form a government, but it lacks support from others to achieve a simple majority of 44.

Top officials here said that two former senior bureaucrats who served the state during central rule in 1996 had been consulted and cleared as advisers to Saxena should governor’s rule become inevitable.

Ashok Kumar, a former state chief secretary who moved out immediately after the Farooq Abdullah government took office in 1996, would be inducted as adviser to the governor along with Mehmoodur Rehman, a former additional chief secretary, officials said.

In addition to the two likely advisers, who are already in Kashmir, a group of constitutional experts has been flown in here from New Delhi to advise the governor on the constitutional nitty-gritty regarding imposition of central rule, during which the option of putting together a political government would be kept open.

“The option of government formation would be kept open even after the state is brought under a spell of governor’s rule,” a source at Raj Bhawan said.

“There would be no time frame for political players in the assembly to come closer to each other and lodge claims for government formation during governor’s rule. The governor is very keen that a political government takes office in the state,” the source added. Officials said if no political party or group of parties is able to convince him of a simple majority by today afternoon, there would be little choice for Saxena but to promulgate an ordinance clamping governor’s rule on the state.

The term of the last assembly that was constituted on Oct. 17, 1996, ends today.

Meanwhile, 14 people, 10 of them rebels, were killed in fresh separatist-linked violence in Kashmir, police said yesterday.