Mehbooba Mufti sworn in as first woman CM of Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu: Mehbooba Mufti, on Monday became the first woman Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. She was sworn into power nearly three months after her father and then Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed died in a Delhi hospital on January 7.

Mufti, who would be 57 next month, took the oath in the name of God in Urdu, the official language of Jammu and Kashmir, in a simple function held at Raj Bhavan in Jammu.

She was administered oath of office and secrecy by Governor Narendra Nath Vohra. She would be heading a PDP-BJP coalition in the State for next nearly five years as a little over one year of the stipulated six year term of the present State Assembly thrown up by November-December 2014 elections is already complete.

She is the 13th chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the country’s second woman Muslim chief minister after Syeda Anwara Taimur who became Assam’s chief minister on December 6, 1980 and continued in office till June 30, 1981.

Mufti also became the 16th female chief minister to serve a state in the country. Currently, there are four in office. They are J Jayalalitha (Tamil Nadu), Anandiben Patel (Gujarat), Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan) and Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal).

Twenty-two other ministers including 16 Cabinet rank ministers and the rest ministers of state also took oath in a brief ceremony. The cabinet rank ministers are PDP’s Abdul Rehman Butt Veeri, Ghulam Nabi Lone ‘Hanjoora’, Abdul Haq Khan, Syed Basharat Bukhari, Haseeb A. Drabu, Chaudhary Zulfikar Ali, Syed Naeem Akhtar and Moulvi Imran Raza Ansari and BJP’s Dr. Nirmal Singh, Chander Prakash, Bali Bhagat,  Chaudhary Lal  Singh, Sajad Gani Lone, Shayam Lal Chaudhary and Abdul Gani Kohli.

The ministers of state are, Asiea Naqash, Syed Farooq Ahmed Andrabi and Zahoor Ahmed Mir from the PDP and Sunil Kumar Sharma, Priya Sethi and Ajay Nanda of the BJP.

Nirmal Singh would be the deputy chief minister, the post he held also in the previous PDP-BJP government headed by Mr. Sayeed. Sajad Lone has been made the minister again under the BJP quota.

All the members of the Council of Ministers took the oath of office under Jammu and Kashmir’s own Constitution as is obligatory under law. Ten ministers including Chief Minister Ms. Mufti took oath in Urdu, J&K's official language, 7 in Hindi, 4 in English and one each in Kashmiri and Dogri.

PDP’s Syed Altaf Bukhari and Javed Mustafa Mir who served as cabinet ministers in the previous PDP-BJP government and also two former ministers of state from the party Abdul Majeed Padder and Muhammad Ashraf Mir were dropped this time, reportedly for their dissident activities and poor performance.  

There is likely to be no change in the portfolios worked out by the two parties in 2015. Under the agreement, portfolios like home, finance, revenue, law and justice and education will remain with the PDP while BJP will keep health, urban development, power, commerce and industries and public health engineering.

The swearing-in ceremony was attended by senior BJP leaders including Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Harsimrat Kour Badal and Jitdendra Singh and BJP’s national general secretary Ram Madhav and former J&K chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah besides a battery of dignitaries, representing various walks of life. However, the Union ministers who were special invitees from the Centre for the swearing-in ceremony arrived at the function late, only after Ms. Mufti and her deputy Nirmal Singh had completed taking the oath.

Mufti’s mother Gulshan Ara Nazir, daughters Iltija and Irtiqa and siblings Tassaduq Sayeed, Mahmooda Sayeed and Rubaiya Sayeed and some other Mufti family members and friends were also present. Senior Congress leaders invited to the ceremony did not turn up. 

Later while speaking at her first Cabinet meeting, Mufti cautioned the participants that the two vacant positions in her cabinet could become five if the ministers do not perform. She said she will have zero tolerance towards corruption, asserting that she will not spare any of her ministers even if she gets a minor complaint against him or her. She reiterated that her government would work towards realising her father’s dream of J&K’s inclusive development.

Mufti who is PDP Lok Sabha MP from southern Anantnag seat, has six months in which she will have to contest election and win as an MLA or MLC. She is likely to contest from the Anantnag Assembly seat, which fell vacant after the death of her father.

Following Mufti Sayeed’s death, his ‘natural successor’ Mehbooba Mufti was reluctant to form the new government with the BJP and had publicly asked for J&K-specific Confidence-Building-Measures (CBMs) towards creating congenial atmosphere for stepping into her father’s shows. In view of delay in government formation, Jammu and Kashmir was placed under Governor’s rule from the night of January 8.

She schooled from Presentation Convent School in Srinagar and graduated in English literature from Government College for Women, Parade in Jammu. She went on to obtain a degree in law from University of Kashmir and got married soon after completion of her law degree. But her marriage later ran into problems. She showed no signs of any flair for public life in the late 1980s, when bringing up two infant daughters-Iltija and Irtiqa-and the other travails of married life occupied her time. Her responsibilities only doubled after she split from her husband Javed Iqbal.

With an elected government in office, the nearly three-month old Governor’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir has ended.

Governor Vohra on Monday issued a proclamation to revoke an earlier one issued by him on January 9 this year to enforce Governor’s Rule in the State. The latter Proclamation was issued in exercise of the powers conferred on him under Section 92 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, whereby he had assumed all the functions of the Government of the State.

A spokesman of the Raj Bhavan in winter capital Jammu said the proclamation issued by the Governor on Monday brings to an end the period of Governor’s Rule in the State, which had commenced with effect from January 8 this year.

The imposition of Governor’s rule has been necessitated by delay in formation of new government by PDP-BJP combine following the death of former chief minister Sayeed.