Mufti Muhammad Sayeed passes away, Mehbooba Mufti likely to succeed as CM

Srinagar/Bijbehara/New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, who crafted the remarkable PDP-BJP coalition in the state after the 2014 Assembly elections, died on Thursday morning at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he had been put on ventilator support for the past few days.

He had been suffering from a lung infection for the past two weeks. Sayeed, 79, died just five days short of his 80th birthday.

Within hours, the PDP elected his daughter Mehbooba Mufti, party chief, as his successor as chief minister.

She will be sworn in shortly as the first woman CM of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Mufti, whose body was flown from New Delhi to Srinagar in a special IAF aircraft earlier in the day, was laid to rest at Bijbehara, his hometown in the Valley 45 km from Srinagar, with full state honours on Thursday evening.

His mortal remains, draped in the tricolour and the J&K state flag, was earlier taken from Srinagar airport to his official residence at Gupkar, overlooking Dal Lake. National Conference chief Omar Abdullah accompanied the body in the IAF aircraft from New Delhi.

Raj Bhavan sources said that the Governor may administer the oath of office to Ms. Mufti any time but will ask her to prove her majority on the floor of the Assembly within 15 days. Incidentally, the House is scheduled to meet in winter capital Jammu on January 18 for the budget session.

Ms. Mufti who was elected to Lok Sabha from home constituency Anantnag in 2014 elections will have to either get elected to the State Assembly within six months or get nominated to the Legislative Council within the same period. But it is likely that she would contest by-election on the Anantnag assembly seat which has fallen vacant following her father’s death.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti and the CM’s wife Gulshan Nazir Ara and some other family members, National Confer-ence president Omar Abdullah and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad accompanied the body in the IAF aircraft from New Delhi. They were soon joined by governor N.N.Vora and a battery of politicians from mainstream political parties, besides ministers in the PDP-BJP coalition government, to pay their last respects. Union home minister Rajnath Singh was present, deputed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to represent the Centre.