Twelve legislators, including Mehbooba from the PDP and 11 from the BJP and Peoples Conference alliance were sworn in as ministers.
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Abdul Majid Padder, who had been minister of state said he was loyal to Mehbooba Mufti and supports whatever decision she took.
Sources say that while Altaf was dropped because he had lost the confidence of Mehbooba Mufti.
Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Jitendra Singh, Harsimrat Kaur Badal along with BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav also attended the oath taking ceremony. In the meeting between Mehbooba and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Last month, have finally preserved the deal for both of the parties.
Gupta said, “They (BJP) have to explain to my people why they don ” t like me and why they chose to drop me from the cabinet”.
To begin with, the BJP’s boisterous campaign in favour of pro-nationalism slogans could push Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP on the back-foot.
BJP and PDP had joined hands previous year after no party got a majority in the state assembly elections. Mehbooba, an MP from South Kashmir, is the second Muslim woman Chief Minister in the country.
Dissent within the Peoples Democratic Party became apparent on Monday when Member of Parliament Tariq Hameed Karra boycotted the swearing-in ceremony and senior leader Altaf Bukhari was dropped from the list of Ministers.
Karra has had disagreements with the party line for several months now over “ideological reasons” after the PDP aligned with the BJP.
Abdul Gani Kohli, another BJP leader, who was Transport Minister, will now hold charge of Animal, Sheep Husbandry and Fisheries, which was previously with Sajjad Lone.
The dropping of six-MLAs who had been part of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed led government has evoked mixed reactions from them while opposition parties slamming government for ignoring twin capital representatives for given them least representation in the Cabinet. The saffron party has Prakash Kumar and Shyam Lal Chowdhury among the new faces in the cabinet.
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BJP, which got two of its leaders promoted to cabinet rank, retained Nirmal Singh as Deputy Chief Minister, a post he held under Sayeed who died on January 7. He was the only Kashmiri minister to take oath in his mother tongue. The other new face brought in as a junior minister is Mehbooba’s Farooq Andrabi, who defeated state Congress chief Ghulam Ahmad Mir.
