As the news of the demise of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister began taking momentum, people all over the country reacted with shock and sadness, at the loss of such a dignified man and an even efficient politician.
However, the question on everyone’s mind seemed to overlap. Who would be the successor to the 79-year-old and take the responsibility of a state marred in controversy?
The answer to that question seems to be in Mufti’s blood.
His daughter
Mehbooba is being backed by the PDP, which has been forced into unchartered terrain for the second time in over a year due to Mufti’s death.
It goes without saying that Mehbooba, who joined politics ‘accidentally’ has huge shoes to fill, but the president of the People’s Democratic Party is also known to be a firebrand and come Sunday, she’ll end up being the first woman Chief minister of J&K.
And, thus we at Business Insider take you through the life and times of Mehbooba Mufti.
Mehbooba was born on May 22, 1959 in Akhran Nowpora, Anantnag District in India and is the eldest daughter of the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. She is also the President of
Her accident stint in politics however started in 1996 when her father, who was at the time spearheading the Congress electoral battle in Kashmir was at a loss of candidates to field. He then got his two brothers-in-law, wife and daughter to contest the state assembly elections.
Mehbooba, who was then a law graduate was fielded from the family home turf of Bijbehara and ended up being one of the two Congress candidates to win from Kashmir.
Mehbooba quickly made a mark as the leader of the opposition in the assembly, taking on the government of then chief minister Farooq Abdullah with severity.
Then in 1999, when Mufti split from the Indian National Congress to form the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Democratic Party, she took on the charge of being vice-president.
Resigning from her assembly seat, she 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 when assembly elections were held again in 2002.
And, when in 2002, Mufti became the CM of a PDP-Congress coalition in 2002, it immediately became clear that Mehbooba was the main architect of fulfilling her father’s dream.
What will work in her favour is the fact that Mehbooba is able to relate to common people, particularly women, far more easily than her father. Establishing the party with hard work in the villages of south Kashmir since the late 1990’s, she’s made it a point to extensively visit common people who had suffered in the course of militancy and counter-insurgency operations.
She has also been elected to the Lok Sabha from Anantnag seat in 2004 and 2014.
But thoughtout it all, she remained dedicated to her father, even till his last breath. Over the past week, she has been tending him day and night in the hospital, even telling the chief minister’s staff to leave the work to her, as it was her job- not theirs.
Image credit: Indiatimes