Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, while retaining the home, tourism, information, estates and hospitality and protocol portfolios with herself, has allotted deputy chief minister Dr Nirmal Singh (BJP) the departments of housing and urban development and power, which he had held in the previous PDP-BJP government headed by Ms Mufti’s father, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. The seniormost minister from the PDP, Abdur Rehman Butt “Veeri”, has got the public works department. He held the lightweight department of Haj and Auqaf in the previous government and was reportedly unhappy with the assignment.
BJP’s Choudhary Lal Singh has been shifted to the forest and environment department from the health and medical education department he held in the previous dispensation. The health department has gone to his party colleague, Bali Bhagat, the minister for forest and social welfare in the Mufti government. BJP’s ally Sajad Gani Lone is the new social welfare minister. PDP’s Abdul Haq Khan and Ghulam Nabi Lone have retained the departments of rural development and agriculture production, respectively.
Mr Khan will, however, hold also the law and justice departments. Syed Basharat Bukhari is revenue and relief minister and Choudhary Zulfkar Ali, also from PDP, has retained the consumer affairs and public distribution department. Chander Prakash Ganga of BJP retains the industries and commerce department, and Haseeb A. Drabu and Syed Naeem Akhtar of the PDP are again finance and education ministers, respectively.
BJP’s Abdul Ghani Kohli has got the animal husbandry department whereas his party colleague, Chering Dorjey, has retained the cooperatives department. A new entrant from the BJP, Sham Lal Choudhary, has got PHE and irrigation, the department earlier held by Sukhnandan Kumar who was dropped by the BJP this time.
Imran Raza Ansari of the PDP retains the information and technology and sports departments.
Among the ministers of state, Aseia Naqash (PDP) is the new housing and urban development minister, Sunil Kumar Sharma (BJP) has got science and technology and revenue, and Farooq Andrabi Hajj and Auqaf with independent charge. BJP’s Priya Sethi has retained education whereas Zahoor Mir of the PDP has got forests and Ajay Nanda of the BJP finance and planning.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, soon after returning home from an official visit to Saudi Arabia, talked to Ms Mufti over the phone to congratulate her on assuming charge and said she has the full support of his government. Confirming this, Ms Mufti said, “The Prime Minister called me this morning, immediately on his return from Saudi Arabia, reassuring me of full support from the government of India in mitigating the sufferings of the people of J&K.”
The CM thanked the Prime Minister for extending her his and his team’s support and said that Mr Modi and her late father, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, held a shared vision of peace and prosperity in J&K. She said her government would work with fresh resolve towards implementing that vision on the ground so that the people of the state could reap the fruits of globalisation and economic liberalisation like their counterparts in other states. “When I met the Prime Minister in New Delhi recently, he told me that Mufti Sahib’s vision is the only way to end the problems in and around Jammu and Kashmir,” she said and reiterated that the PDP-BJP government has the full support of the PM and his team.
