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Who is Mehbooba Mufti?
Mehbooba Mufti is a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and the president of the People's Democratic Party (PDP). She is the daughter of PDP founder and former J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. She earned her law degree from the University of Kashmir.
Political career
Political career
Mehbooba Mufti became the CM after her father died and held the office from 4 April 2016 to 19 June 2018. She resigned after alliance partner BJP withdrew its support to the coalition government in the state. She was the first woman CM of the state and the second Muslim woman to hold the CM's office.
She began her political career by winning the 1996 Assembly elections in J&K on a Congress ticket from the Bijbehara constituency. Subsequently, she lost the seat to Omar Abdullah in 1999. The same year, she followed her father as he left the Indian National Congress to set up the PDP and became the vice-president of the party.
Mehbooba Mufti won the Pahalgam constituency in the 2002 Assembly election. She won the Anantnag seat in the 2004 general elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, she retained the Anantnag seat by defeating National Conference’s Mirza Mehboob Beg by a margin of 44,735 votes.
In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mufti again contested from the Anantnag seat, but got defeated by Hasnain Masoodi of the National Conference.