Mehbooba Mufti to take oath as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister today

Jammu: Mehbooba Mufti will take over as the first woman Muslim chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday with her party PDP unlikely to make changes in its earlier team but its alliance partner BJP may drop one of its independent members from the council of ministers that will take oath along with her.

Governor N.N. Vohra will administer oath of office and secrecy to 56-year-old Ms Mehbooba, who will be the 13th chief minister of the state, along with 16 Cabinet ministers and eight minister of states. Two of them from BJP will be given independent charge.

Sources in the PDP said there won’t be any change in the team that was sworn-in along with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed on March 1, 2015 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.

BJP MLAs had asked its party leadership to give a chance to its own MLAs rather than bringing independent members in the ministerial team. Mr Gupta was minister of state for finance and information and technology in Sayeed’s cabinet.

There is likely to be no change in the portfolios worked out by the two parties in 2015. Under the agreement, portfolios like home, finance, revenue, law and justice and education will remain with the PDP while BJP will keep health, urban development, power, commerce and industries and public health engineering.

Ms Mehbooba arrived in Jammu this afternoon along with her family members and is expected to have a meeting with the deputy chief minister-designate Nirmal Singh from the BJP ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.

Ms Mehbooba will become the country’s second woman Muslim chief minister after Syeda Anwara Taimur who became Assam’s CM on December 6, 1980 and continued in office till June 30, 1981.

Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Jitdendra Singh will be the special invitees for the oath ceremony which will also be attended by former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah.

Earlier in the day, Ms Mehbooba telephoned senior Abdullah and requested him to attend the swearing-in ceremony in Jammu. “I will be attending it,” Mr Abdullah conveyed to Ms Mehbooba.

After taking oath, Ms Mehbooba, who is PDP Lok Sabha MP from Anantnag seat, will have six months in which she will have to contest election and win as an MLA or MLC. She is likely to contest from the Anantnag Assembly seat which fell vacant after the death of her father Mufti Mohammed Sayeed on January seven.