Set to be President for 6th term today
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
JAMMU: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is all set to be unanimously elected as President of the ruling Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for her sixth consecutive term here on Saturday.
According to the informed sources, almost all the 260 members of the Electoral College, representing all district and zone bodies of the State besides the incharge of all Assembly constituencies, have arrived in Jammu to participate in the formality of voting which would be held either at Banquet Hall or at PDP’s Jammu headquarters in Gandhi Nagar.
Sources disclosed to STATE TIMES informed that all the district and zone delegates have already submitted their forms and proposed Mufti as President. Election for President is being held in follow up to election of district and zone office bearers and delegates for the Electoral College. Senior PDP leader and Minister for Revenue Abdul Rehman Veeri would function as Returning Officer which would be also monitored by Election Commission of India.
While as the PDP founder late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed functioned as the first President from 1999 to 2002, senior Vice President Muzaffar Hussain Baig was nominated as President upon Mufti’s taking over as Chief Minister of the PDP-Congress coalition government in November 2002. He operated as the second President till Mehbooba Mufti replaced him for the first time as President in 2003. Thereafter, she has been continuously functioning as President of her party.
Having completed her 5th three-year term, Mufti would be chosen for her 6th consecutive term uncontested.
Even as it was her father Sayeed who, along with a number of his trusted colleagues, resigned from Congress and founded his own regional party under the banner of PDP in July 1999, Mehbooba quit her Assembly seat as Congress party’s MLA from Bijbehara and played key role in strengthening and mobilising her cadre, mainly in Kashmir valley. Weeks before his death in January 2015, Mufti himself asserted to media that it was not he but his daughter Mehbooba who had carried out the real party work, kept herself in regular touch with all cadres, expanded PDP’s base and thus deserved to be his successor in the government. Born on May 22, 1959, 58-year-old Mehbooba is a law graduate from University of Kashmir. After Sayeda Anwara Taimur of Assam, she is India’s second Muslim woman Chief Minister. She took over as Chief Minister on April 4, 2016, with BJP’s and Peoples Conference support following her father’s death and a brief Governor’s rule.
Having represented South Kashmir in 14th Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009, Mehbooba was elected on the same seat for 16th Lok Sabha in 2014. However, she resigned her seat to take over as Chief Minister and successor of her father and was elected as MLA in the by-election on Anantnag Assembly seat in June 2016. She has never lost any Assembly election, though she suffered defeat in Lok Sabha election on the Central Kashmir seat from the National Conference candidate Omar Abdullah in 1999.
During her maiden term as MLA from Bijbehara, Mehbooba was chosen as Leader of Congress Legislature Party in Assembly in 1996. She held that position till her resignation in 1999. In 2002 Assembly elections, she was elected as PDP’s MLA from Pahalgam. In 2008 Assembly elections, she was returned as PDP’s MLA from Wachi.
Elected three times as MLA and two times as MP, besides Chief Minister in 2016, Mehbooba is now the highest profile leader in her party.
In the last 18 years, some of PDP’s founder members like Ghulam Qadir Pardesi, Ghulam Nabi Mir Lasjan, Ghulam Hassan Mir and, lately, Tariq Hamid Qarra have deserted the party and joined or floated different parties. However, none of them has been able to emerge as a potential threat for Mufti or his daughter who have retained ultimate control of the organisation in their hands.
Media reports after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s death in early 2016 suggested that the PDP leader Syed Altaf Bukhari had engineered defection with the support of 16 MLAs to take over as CM with BJP’s and some independent MLAs’ vote. These speculations, which were neither denied nor confirmed by Mehbooba, faded out when she herself became Chief Minister in the month of April. Significantly, Bukhari was not retained by her as a Minister. In 2017, he was again inducted as a Minister and given Education portfolio.
