| PDP drops four, BJP two ministers, Sham, Nanda, Zahoor, Farooq new faces | | Mehbooba takes oath as first female Chief Minister of J&K | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 4: Mehbooba Mufti, president of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today took oath as first woman Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Mehooba Mufti along with 22 ministers, took oath in a simple and sober function to end nearly three month long Governor's rule in the State.
PDP dropped four ministers including two Cabinet and similar number of Ministers of State (MoS), while as BJP dropped one Cabinet and one MoS by inducting two new faces. Governor, N N Vohra administered oath to all the ministers in the presence of prominent dignitaries.
Choudhary Sham Lal, MLA Suchetgarh, Ajay Nanda (both BJP), Zahoor Mir and Farooq Andrabi (both PDP) are four new faces in the Council of Ministers.
PDP surprised everyone by dropping two "most active" cabinet ministers including Sayeed Altaf Bukhari, who was holding Roads and Buildings Department and Mustafa Mir, who was Revenue Minister in the regime.
Although PDP dropped four ministers, only two new faces were inducted in the council of ministers from the quota of the party.
Senior BJP leader and Union Minister for Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Parliamentary Affairs, M Venkiah Naidu came all the way to attend the swearing in function. He was also accompanied Harsimrat Kour, Union Minister of Food Processing and Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State in PMO.
Former chief ministers and National Conference leadersDr. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah also attended the function which was also attended by Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Kavinder Gupta, Haji Anayat Ali, Chairman Legislative Council, Nazir Ahmed Khan (Gurezi), Deputy Chairman, Legislative Assembly.
Ram Madhav, National General Secretary was also present in the swearing in ceremony.
Interestingly two Cabinet ministers namely Sukhnandan Choudhary of BJP and Altaf Bukhari of PDP were also present on the occasion.
The Governor issued proclamation after swearing-in ceremony ending the spell of Governor's rule in the State. He also issued another order designating Dr Nirmal Singh as the Deputy Chief Minister.
The Members of the Council of Ministers who took Oath as Minister for State included Mehbooba Mufti, Dr. Nirmal Kumar Singh, Abdul Rehman Bhat, Chander Parkash, Ghulam Nabi Lone, Bali Bhagat,. Abdul Haq Khan, Lal Singh, Syed Basharat Ahmad Bukhari, Sajad Gani Lone, Haseeb A Drabu, Chering Dorjey, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali, Sham Lal Choudhary, Naeem Akhtar, Abdul Ghani Kohli and Imran Raza Ansari.
The Members of the Council of Ministers who took Oath as Minister of State included Asiea Naqash,. Sunil Kumar Sharma, Syed Farooq Ahmad Andrabi, Priya Sethi, Zahoor Ahmad Mir and Ajay Nanda. |
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