Mehbooba Mufti to be sworn in as Jammu and Kashmir’s CM

Jammu- Mehbooba Mufti, chairperson of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is set to be sworn in as the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.

The swearing in ceremony of Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP-BJP coalition government will take place at 11.00 a.m. in Jammu on Monday.

N.N. Vohra will administer oath of office to Mufti, 56, as the 13th chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir at state Raj Bhawan in Jammu.

Mufti would be the first woman chief minister of India’s only Muslim majority state.

Sources in the two parties have confirmed that two former ministers from the PDP and three from the BJP were being ‘dropped’ by the alliance.

It is also reliably learnt that while most of the faces in the Mufti Muhammad Sayeed-led government are being repeated in the council of ministers led by his daughter, there is going to be major re-allocation of portfolios among the new team of ministers.

Meanwhile the Congress on Sunday said it will boycott the swearing-in ceremony of PDP president Mehbooba Mufti as Jammu and Kashmir chief minister on Monday.

“We will boycott the oath-taking ceremony for two reasons. Firstly because we oppose a government which is ultimately backed by the RSS.

“And secondly, Mehbooba Mufti’s grandstanding for three months cost the state,” Congress state president G.A. Mir told IANS here. It is important to note that the state went into President’s rule after the death of former CM Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.

Mehbooba will head an alliance of her Peoples Democratic Party with the Bharatiya Janata Party, like her late father Mufti Muhammad Sayeed did after the 2014 assembly elections.

Jammu and Kashmir was put under Governor’s Rule on January 8, a day after Sayeed passed away in New Delhi and she had not been keen to succeed him initially.

Image: File photo (IANS)