Mehbooba Mufti is set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir as she emerged as the unanimous choice for the post following the death of her father, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. Her party, the PDP, formally elected her its chief ministerial candidate at a meeting in Srinagar on Thursday.Mehbooba Mufti had refused to take over after the death of her father, insisting that fundamental terms of the agreement of the alliance were being ignored by the BJP."Thank you for choosing me as the leader of PDP legislature party. You all are my strength," Ms Mufti told her party's legislators during the meeting.“As far as PDP is concerned, we are unanimous that Mehbooba shall succeed Mufti Sahib,” senior PDP leader and Lok Sabha member Muzaffar Hussain Baig told reporters. Almost all the senior leaders of the party including Assembly and Parliament members attended the crucial meeting.
Sources said that Mehbooba Mufti was unanimously elected as party legislature leader. “During the meeting it was decided to re-new the alliance with the Bhartiya Janata Party while all the members of the party reposed faith in the leadership of Mehbooba ji,” a legislator who attended the meeting told CNS.Mehbooba’s ascent to the post of the Chief Minister would require approval of BJP, which will hold a meeting in Jammu on Friday. In the 87-member J and K Assembly PDP won 28 seats and BJP 25 while opposition National Conference got 15 and Congress 12.Sources said that the oath ceremony is likely to be held in Jammu on Tuesday. The 56-year-old mother of two daughters is also president of the PDP. She won her first Assembly election as Congress candidate from her home segment of Bijbehara. Mehbooba played a key role in her father’s victory as Congress candidate in Lok Sabha elections of 1998 when Sayeed defeated NC’s Muhammad Yousuf Taing from south Kashmir.
The Muftis, along with some key associates, floated their own regional party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999. In 2002 Assembly elections, PDP bagged 16 seats and Sayeed for the first time became Chief Minister with the support of Congress and some independent MLAs.In 2004, Mehbooba contested and won her first Lok Sabha election, from south Kashmir. In 2008, she contested and was returned as MLA from Wachi segment of Shopian in south Kashmir when PDP bagged 21 seats but lost power to NC-Congress coalition. In 2014, she was yet again returned as Lok Sabha member from south Kashmir. Later in November-December Assembly elections, PDP got 28 seats and in March 2015 it formed its second government in Jammu and Kashmir—this time in an alliance with BJP.Mehbooba has never lost an election from South Kashmir so far. She is set to become the first woman Chief Minister of the State. (CNS)