The nearly three-month-long Governor’s rule would come to an end in Jammu & Kashmir on Monday when Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti would be sworn in as first woman Chief Minister of the embattled State. The 56-year-old Mufti was invited by the Governor NN Vohra to form the Government on Saturday, a week after PDP and BJP leaders met him in Jammu to offer consent to form the coalition Government.
Mehbooba left for Jammu on Sunday afternoon to take oath along with her Council of Ministers. The coalition partners have not revealed the names of Ministers but it is believed that a few new faces would be introduced in the new Council of Ministers.
Mehbooba and her top party leaders held a meeting with BJP’s top brass led by Nirmal Singh late on Sunday night at Circuit House to finalise the list of Ministers, sources said.
The Governor’s rule was imposed in J&K on January 8, a day after then Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s demise. Mehbooba refused to step into her father’s shoes, initially due to mourning, and later citing reservations in continuing alliance with BJP. She demanded J&K-specific Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) from New Delhi before renewing alliance with the right wing party. At one point, it seemed that the alliance was at the verge of collapse but on March 22, a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mehbooba Mufti in New Delhi changed the scenario.
Mufti apparently dropped her demand of CBMs and vowed to remained committed the Agenda of Alliance formulated by her late father with the BJP leadership as a roadmap for governance in J&K.
Politicians from Opposition leader Omar Abdullah to people on the street in Kashmir say that Mehbooba Mufti would have to explain as to why she wasted three months for forming a government when none of her demands was accepted by the Center.
Mehbooba on Saturday called up Omar Abdullah to invite him on the oath ceremony. Omar appreciated the gesture. “Very gracious of Mehbooba Mufti Sahiba to phone & invite me to her oath taking ceremony. I look forward to being there on the 4th,” Abdullah tweeted shortly after Mehbooba’s call.
Sources said that Ms Mufti has invited 20 top women including four women Chief Ministers Mamta Banerjee, Jayalalita, Anandi Ben Patel and Vasundra Raja Scindia besides ace tennis player Sania Mirza.
Even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi, JKPCC Chief Gulam Ahmad Mir and state legislators of the party were invited for the ceremony, the party announced in the evening that it would boycott the oath ceremony in protest against “undemocratic” ways of destabilising Congress governments in some states.
“BJP and its Central Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used undemocratic ways to destabilize democratically elected Congress Governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand,” a BJP spokesman said.
“PDP and BJP formed an unholy alliance in the State even though the two parties contested Assembly elections against each other by projecting different ideologies and manifestos, but later entered into an alliance,” the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, sources said that while PDP is likely to drop Altaf Bukhari this time, the axe from the BJP side has fallen on the only Muslim face of the BJP Abdul Gani Kohli. Former State BJP president Ashok Khajuria is likely to be taken in.
Meanwhile, the television channels will not be allowed to telecast the oath ceremony live even as BJP general secretary Ram Madhav had told them to call Out Broadcasting Vans to Jammu.