The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday sought to clarify “misgivings” created in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond by former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s family moving out of his official residence in Jammu, the winter capital of the state.
“No politics is involved in vacating the chief minister’s official residence,” senior party leader and former education minister Naeem Akhter said here.
Sayeed’s wife Gulshan Nazir Ara had earlier this week moved the family’s personal belongings out of the sprawling bungalow along Jammu’s posh Wazarat Road which led to fresh speculation on whether her daughter and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti will take oath as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Sayeed died in a Delhi hospital on January 7. Two days later, Jammu and Kashmir was placed under governor’s rule as alliance partners — the PDP and BJP — delayed formation of new government necessitated by the chief minister’s demise.
Mr Akhtar said the personal belongings of Sayeed were taken out of the chief minister’s official residence in Jammu by his family “to maintain the highest standards of dignified political conduct practiced by him during his lifetime.”
He added, “Following Mufti Sahib’s demise, the family took his personal belongings out and vacated the chief minister’s designated official residence and there is no politics involved in the issue.”
He further said that Mr. Sayeed, during his lifetime, maintained highest standards of dignified political conduct and that his family is carrying forward his legacy and that is why the Chief Minister’s designated official residence was immediately vacated by it following his demise in harness.
In Srinagar, the summer capital of the State, Mr. Sayeed lived at ‘Fairview’, the government-owned bungalow in the lap of Zabarvan hills overlooking the Dal Lake allotted to him after his first stint as Chief Minister was over in 2005. His daughter Ms. Mufti who lived with him is likely to retain the accommodation as she is entitled to it being a member of Lok Sabha. The Muftis have their own house at Nowgam on the outskirts of Srinagar City built by Mr. Sayeed more than two decades. Their ancestral house, made of timber and exposed bricks, in Baba Mohalla of the highway town of Bijbehara, 45-km south of here, has not been in use by the family since their permanently shifting to capital Srinagar decades ago. It was in the news recently when surging crowds while mourning the killing of three Islamic militants in a gun fight with the security forces attacked it with rocks and put up Pakistan’s national flag near a first floor window on November 24 last year.
