Indian Kashmir gets first woman chief minister

Creating history, Mehbooba Mufti, 56, on Monday was sworn-in as first woman chief minister of Jammu Kashmir by Governor N N Vohra at Raj Bhavan.

BJP MLA Dr Nirmal Singh, who was Deputy CM in Mufti SAYEED government, will occupy the same position in the new government as well.

He was among 24 ministers sworn-in by the Governor after her taking over oath of office and secrecy.

Mehbooba also becomes the second Muslim, Indian Express reports.

Woman after Syeda Ankara Taimur who became chief minister of Askam in December 1980 for nearly seven months.

Mehbooba succeeds her father Mufti Sayeed who breathed his last while in office on January 7 this year.

Along with her were sworn in 23 ministers, nine from PDP and eight from BJP including Sajjad Lone of Peoples Conference on the occasion.

Significantly, with this PDP’S strength in cabinet comes to nine from previous11. Those dropped by PDP included altaf bukhari and Javed Mustafa Mir, both former cabinet ministers. The PDP also dropped its one Former MOS Majid Paddar this time.

The new faces in Mehbooba Mufti’s council of ministers include Sham Choudhary and Ajay Nanda from BJP who replaced former PHE Minister Such nandan Choudhary and for Ministe of State for Finance Pawan Gupta, respectively.

The PDP’new faces are Syed Farooq Andrabi (Mehbooba’s uncle) and Zahoor Ahmed Mir, both MOS. THE BJP retained its two MOS Priya Sethi and Asia Naqash, besides inducting a new face Ajay Nanda.

Individual performance and their attitude towards public especially party workers appeared to be the criteria selection of ministers.

The BJP national vice president Avinash Rai Khanna had dropped hints about it at the party executive committee meeting on Sunday evening, saying “this is BJP family.

A party worker may come to you for some work, but you may find difficult to do. At least send him back after having a cup of tea as it will him feel good about you”.

It was a proud moment for the entire Mufti family who were present to witness the historic swearing in of Mehbooba as first woman CM of the state. Her mother Gulshan Begum, daughters, sisters, brother were among his family and relatives present on the occasion.

The occasion was also marked  by  the presence of senior BJP ministers including Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kour and Union Minister of State in the PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh, besides former union Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, BJP national general secretay Ram Madhav, vice president Avinash Rai Khanna were  among many prominent personalities. State Congress, however, boycotted the function in protest over the dismissal of its governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand.

The government formation, which came nearly three months after the death of then Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed on January 7, brought to end the existing Governor’s rule.

However, the government will have an uphill task in continuing with the pace of governance initiated by Governor Vohra’s adminisrration during his less than three months rule by taking various pro people and pro employee decisions which had been pending for past many years.

In the 89 member Legislative Assembly, PDP has 27 MLAs (as one seat has fallen vacant after the death of Mufti Sayeed), followed by BJP’s 25. 

However, the latter has the support of two Peoples Conference MLAs and an independent from Udhampur raising their total combined tally to 28.

The PDP too has the support of one independent from Zanskar raising its tally to 28.

Apart from this, both PDP and BJP have one nominated woman member each in the House as well.