Keeping PDP-BJP coalition intact is Mehbooba's biggest challenge

The challenges will be the real test of Mehbooba's leadership qualities and political acumen, reports Mukhtar Ahmad.

When Mehbooba Mufti takes the oath of office on Monday morning, she will be the first woman chief minister of the only Muslim majority state -- Jammu and Kashmir -- in the country.

Mehbooba, 56, the late J&K chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's eldest daughter, though not a political greenhorn, will be pitted against many challenges, particularly on the political and economic fronts.

Her main challenge will be to keep her Peoples Democratic Party's coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party going which her late father aptly described as the 'coming together of the North and South Poles.'

Mufti Sayeed's political stature helped him surmount the challenges of the PDP-BJP coalition during his nearly one-year rule.

The challenges will be the real test of Mehbooba's leadership qualities and political acumen as she does not enjoy her father's stature and vast political experience.

Working with her father in the tumultuous political scenario of Jammu and Kashmir for two decades has enabled her to hone her political skills, glimpses of which were seen in her capability to create the PDP.

Mehbooba cobbled together the PDP with painstaking efforts and made it a political force to be reckoned with, creating a popular base for the party.

Monday's swearing-in ceremony will end the three month-long governor's rule in the state and the political uncertainty that followed Sayeed's death in a Delhi hospital on January 7.

Governor's rule was imposed on Jammu and Kashmir on January 9 after Mehbooba refused to take the oath as chief minister, setting off political uncertainty and a chain of discussions between the PDP and the BJP leadership over the formation of a new government.

The uncertainty was resolved after Mehbooba met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, an encounter which the PDP president described as 'very satisfying.'

Political observers say the coalition will need the Centre's support to address the many problems facing confronting the state on the economic front.