Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohara along with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and her cabinet poses for a group photo at Raj Bhawan in Jammu on Monday. Sources in the PDP said that there won’t be any change in the team that was sworn-in along with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed on March one past year but BJP sources indicated that one of its MLA’s from Udhampur, who was Minister of State in earlier cabinet, Pawan Kumar Gupta, may be dropped from the new team and replaced by a new face.
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Mehbooba Mufti, Mr Abdullah said, is a “CM by inheritance, not because she is a woman”, and alleged that none of her conditions for government formation were fulfilled by the BJP, adding, “I don’t know what last three months were for?”
Senior PDP leader Mohammad Altaf Bukhari who had been Roads and Buildings department minister of the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed led government said he will continue to work for the people and the party.
Her swearing-in takes the number of female chief ministers in India to five, although she is the first woman to serve in the post in the deeply conservative state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In fact, several PDP leaders went to extent of saying the prospects of an alliance with the BJP were all but over. It is after nearly three decades, the swearing in ceremony of the state’s CM took place here.
In 1999, Mufti and her father quit the Congress realising that the party was no longer acceptable to the people of Kashmir who were fighting for separation from India.
When Amarnath land row engulfed the state, Mehbooba played an important role in persuading her father to pull out from the coalition government with Congress headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad.
She said Mehbooba Mufti’s main priority will be Kashmir now. “I think she is talented enough to run the state”, he said. The PDP is the largest party with 28 seats – now 27 following Sayeed’s death – in the 87-member house.
After the national anthem was played ahead of the oath ceremony, the BJP leaders and activists of rightwing parties chanted “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” slogan and when the function concluded, they stood up from their seats and raised the slogans again.
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The PDP president had been seeking assurances from the central government on implementation of agenda of alliance and the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) framed by the two parties a year ago.
