Mehbooba Mufti

Mehbooba Mufti
9th Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
In office 4 April 2016 – 19 June 2018
Governor	Narinder Nath Vohra
Deputy	Nirmal Kumar Singh, Kavinder Gupta
Preceded by	Governor's rule
Succeeded by	Governor's rule
Member of Indian Parliament for Anantnag
In office 2014–2018
Preceded by	Mirza Mehboob Beg
In office 16 May 2004 – 16 May 2009
Preceded by	Mirza Mehboob Beg
Succeeded by	Ali Muhammad Naik
Personal details
Born	(1959-05-22) 22 May 1959 Bijbehara, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Political party	Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party
Spouse	Javed Iqbal (divorced)
Children	2 Daughters.
Relatives	Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (father)
Alma mater	University of Kashmir

Mehbooba Mufti (born 22 May 1959) is an Indian politician who served as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, from 4th April 2016 to 19th June 2018. She resigned on June 19 2018 after BJP withdrew support from the coalition government. She was the first woman to hold the office. Mehbooba Mufti is India's second Muslim woman chief minister after Syeda Anwara Taimur of Assam. She is the president of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was a member of the Indian parliament, representing Anantnag in the 16th Lok Sabha; before she was sworn in as the Chief Minister of J&K. She had previously represented Anantnag in the 14th Lok Sabha (2004–09) but did not contest the 2009 election for the 15th Lok Sabha.

Early life

She is the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, born in 1959 in Akhran Nowpora, she earned her law degree from the University of Kashmir.

Her sister Rubaiya Sayeed was kidnapped when their father was appointed India's Home Minister in 1989 and released after a few days in exchange for some terrorists. The release of the terrorists was condemned by many sections of the society and the opposition.

Personal Life

She was married to her father's cousin, Javed Iqbal. It was an unhappy marriage and ended in a bitter divorce. She has two daughters, Iitija and Irtiqa. Iitija works with the Indian High Commission in London and Irtiqa works in Hindi film industry with her maternal uncle, Mufti Tasaduq.

Political career

When elections for the state assembly were held in 1996, Mehbooba became one of the most popular members elected from Bijbehara on an Indian National Congress ticket. Her father had returned to the Congress, which he had left in 1987, angry at the alliance that party had formed with its traditional rival in the state, the National Conference. Mehbooba quickly made a mark as the leader of the opposition in the assembly, taking on the government of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah with asperity.

Mehbooba is one of the few female politicians from Kashmir who is recognized across India. When Mufti Mohammad Sayeed split from the Indian National Congress to form the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999, many thought she would be the party president. She deferred to her father's experience, however, and became party vice-president.

She resigned her assembly seat and went on to contest the parliamentary elections in 1999 from Srinagar, where she lost to the sitting member Omar Abdullah but won the Pahalgam seat in the state assembly from South Kashmir, defeating Rafi Ahmed Mir, when assembly elections were held again in 2002. She was elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag seat in 2004 and 2014.

After her father's death in January 2016, when he was heading the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir, she took forward the same alliance with Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the second time the BJP and the PDP formed a government in Jammu and Kashmir. On 4 April 2016, she took the oath and became the first woman Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

On 25 June 2016 she won an Assembly seat in a by-election in Anantnag with the highest margin in any recent elections there.

See also

• Mehbooba Mufti ministry (2016–2018)

External links

• Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
• State Assembly hall security remove opposition People's Democratic Party
• Asit Jolly: Mehbooba Mufti under Siege. Can She Stem the Rot?’’ In: India Today, May 15, 2017, 30 - 38 pp. (Buffeted by Insurgency and Dissent within Her Party, She Needs All the Help She Can Get from a Reluctant Centre.) indiatoday.intoday.in May 4, 2017