Mehbooba Mufti

Mehbooba Mufti Sayed (born 22 May 1959) is an Indian politician and leader of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Democratic Party (PDP). She served as the 9th chief minister of the erstwhile state Jammu and Kashmir from 4 April 2016 to 19 June 2018.

Mufti was the first woman to hold the office of chief minister in the Jammu and Kashmir. She formed a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir jointly with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The coalition was termed as "Himalayan blunder" by the Indian National Congress. She resigned in June 2018 after the BJP withdrew from the coalition.

Mufti was the president of the 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 the Jammu and Kashmir. She also represented Anantnag in the 14th Lok Sabha (2004–09) and has also been a Leader of Opposition in Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.

Early life and career

She is the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Gulshan Ara, born in 1959 in Akhran Nowpora, J&K, India. She graduated in English literature from Government College for Women in Jammu, and obtained a law degree from the University of Kashmir. After 1989, she moved to New Delhi where she worked at the Bombay Mercantile bank and later at East West Airlines, before moving back to J&K. 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. She later served as the leader of the opposition in the assembly, taking on the government of chief minister Farooq Abdullah with asperity.

She resigned her assembly seat and went on to contest the parliamentary elections in 1999 from Srinagar, where she lost to incumbent member Omar Abdullah. She 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. 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 and thereafter focussed on settling of Rohingyas.

On 19 June 2018, she resigned as chief minister of Kashmir. Her government had been an alliance between the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP, but there was a rift in the alliance in February 2018, when two BJP ministers expressed public support for a man who was alleged to have raped and killed an eight-year-old girl in Kathua District. Mehbooba and the state government had tried suspending security operations for Ramadan, but the militants had not reciprocated, and later also lost the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Anantanag - Rajouri seat to Mian Altaf Ahmed Larvi of National Conference with 2.3 lakh votes.

Detention On 5 August 2019, Mufti was detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act when the central government abrogated the Jammu and Kashmir's special status. Her daughter Iltija Mufti took over her mother's X (formerly Twitter) account on the 46th day of detention. In November, Iltija Mufti wrote a letter to the Srinagar Deputy Commissioner to shift her mother to a place better equipped for the valley's winter.

In February 2020 she was further detained under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. She was released on 13 October 2020.

On 25 November 2020, Mufti was again detained by Jammu and Kashmir Police and was not allowed to visit South Kashmir's Pulwama to meet the family of senior PDP leader Waheed Para, who was arrested by the National Investigating Agency earlier that week.

Mufti said that her daughter Iltija Mufti has also been placed under house arrest.