Mehbooba set to be first woman CM of Jammu & Kashmir

Zulfikar Majid Srinagar: March 25, 2016, DHNS:

PDP chief unanimously elected leader

Decks have been cleared for Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir.

Mehbooba was unanimously elected legislature party leader of the PDP during a meeting of legislators and senior leaders at her residence here on Thursday.

“Thank you for choosing me as the leader of PDP legislature party. You are my strength,” Mehbooba told legislators after the meeting.

Senior PDP leader and MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig, who briefed the media after the meeting, announced that Mehbooba will be the next chief minister of the state.

“The new government will be formed very soon. The party (PDP and BJP) heads are going to meet Governor N N Vohra and the oath taking date will be decided in the meeting,” he said.

Asked whether the BJP had agreed to the conditions put forth by the PDP for government formation, he said: “No new condition was set by the PDP. ‘Agenda of Alliance’ is most comprehensive and there is no need to put any new conditions.”

Beigh said BJP general-secretary Ram Madhav was right when he said no new condition has been set by the PDP.

Mehbooba, who represents south Kashmir’s Anantnag Parliamentary constituency, will now have to get elected to either House of the state’s bicameral legislature. She will also resign from her Lok Sabha seat.

Earlier, 57-year-old Mehbooba prayed at her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s grave in the ancestral hometown of Bijbehara in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

The previous BJP-PDP alliance that was ruling the state collapsed after Mufti’s death on January 7. The state has since been under Governor’s rule.