DHAKA: Mehbooba Mufti has been sworn in as the first woman chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, where she will lead a coalition with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.

The 56-year-old leader took oath after a delay of nearly three months since her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s death.

It was a meeting with Modi on 23 March that finally allowed the re-stitching of the ‘unusual’ alliance of two diametrically opposite political parties – Mufti’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Last year, Sayeed himself had called the PDP-BJP alliance a meeting of the North and South Pole.

In a sharp contrast to the BJP, the PDP has been seen as a pro-Kashmir party and critics accuse it of peddling ‘soft separatism’ revolving around reconciliation with Pakistan and separatist groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir.

Mufti is seen by many in India as a ‘militant mainstream politician’, with a history of showing solidarity with families of militants.

But today she is in the hot seat.

She refused to take office immediately after her father’s death, insisting on some ‘confidence building measures’, but finally managed to broker a ‘secret’ deal with Modi in a recent meeting.

She has termed the meeting ‘positive and satisfying’ but not given any details yet.

BDST: 1306 HRS, APR 04, 2016
RR