Mufti takes the keys to Kashmir, Jammu, future

This wasn’t a routine change of guard. For the first time in its history, and after 27 years of the one-party rule of the Abdullah family, the state is going in for a multi-party coalition government, one where the Abdullahs have been asked by the people to sit at home.

So although the day was marred by violence, there was no escaping the relaxed air. And in a city where looking over your shoulder is second nature, people admitted to feeling sukurna (a sense of relief).

Mufti has generated high expectations and he is aware of the pitfalls. ‘‘We will now have to deliver,’’ he told The Sunday Express, ‘‘and this is an enormous responsibility. My first task is to bring peace to the state.’’

It isn’t going to be easy. For even as the Director General of Police already asked his district chiefs to prepare a list of those booked under POTA, whose release Mufti has promised, three hours before Mufti took over, two grenades were thrown at his Nowgam residence. A security guard was injured but the message was there for all to see—it’s going to be one long tightrope walk.

But Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who flew in to attend, said she was confident. Asked about the security forces’ concern regarding the government’s plans to disband the much-feared Special Operations Group and release those in jail, she said: ‘‘Mufti Sahib is a responsible person. We are responsible people. The security forces didn’t need to see it in that light.’’

For the Congress, the swearing-in ceremony was also meant to send a signal that Sonia Gandhi was there as a potential leader of a national coalition.

In fact, her giving the first round of chiefministership to Mufti, and the flexibility she displayed in the last few days leading up to the formation of the government today, has raised hopes of other regional parties. Like the SP, for a tieup in Uttar Pradesh and for a line-up in Gujarat.

It was a tired looking Mufti, dressed in a new but ill-fitting cream coloured bandh gala who was sworn in along with eight Ministers by Governor Girish Saxena. Till late last night, he was ironing out last-minute glitches like pressure from the independents who wanted to be included in the Cabinet.

But he finally managed to persuade them that the first round of the cabinet should be a small one. The new CM said he will go in for a Cabinet expansion after a short session of the Assembly later this month.

After the swearing-in ceremony, Mufti and a few of his Ministers went to the Hazratbal shrine to seek blessings.

Besides Mufti, the others who were sworn in today are Mangat Ram Sharma, the Congress’s seniormost politician from Jammu, who is the new Deputy Chief Minister, Peerzada Mohammed Syeed and Mula Ram, also from the Congress; Muzzafar Hussain Beig and Ghulam Hasan Mir from the PDP, and Harshdev Singh from the Panther’s Party. Two independents, Nawang Rigzin, and Haji Nisar Ali, from Leh and Kargil respectively will be Ministers of State in the new government.

While the Congress came to Srinagar today to lend its support to the new government after a historic election—there was Manmohan Singh, Ambika Soni, C K Jaffer Sharief, Ghulam Nabi Azad and others besides Sonia—there was no representative of the Central Government at the ceremony except Chamanlal Gupta, who is anyway identified with the state. This struck a jarring note, and was the subject of conversation at the function today.

Prominently seated in the front row was Omar Abdullah, the president of the National Conference, and Mufti shook hands with him warmly soon after he entered the hall. Later, the young Abdullah walked up to Sonia Gandhi and chatted with her and afterwards mingled with the new ministers over tea. Omar admitted that it felt ‘‘strange’’ to be attending a swearing-in ceremony at which his father was not being installed.

Conspicuous by his absence however was Farooq Abdullah. His son said he was out of town and quipped, ‘‘You cannot now complain if he decides to vanish.’’ The seating in the front row of the Sher-e-Kashmir Centre before Mufti went up to the stage to take the oath spoke volumes about the new power equation.

Mufti was flanked on one hand by his daughter Mehbooba, who has opted to stay out of the Government to look after PDP affairs, and on the other by the wife of Ghulam Nabi Azad, PCC chief and Congress legislature party leader. Sonia sat next to Mehbooba, and then came Azad himself.