Venkaiah Naidu, Jitendra Singh to attend Mehbooba Mufti's swearing-in ceremony

Mufti will take oath as J&K CM at the swearing-in-ceremony at Raj Bhavan at 11 a.m

Union Ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Jitendra Singh will attend the swearing-in ceremony of PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister on Monday.

Mehbooba, Deputy Chief Minister designate Dr Nirmal Singh and other council of ministers will take oath at the swearing-in-ceremony at Raj Bhavan at 11 a.m on Monday, official sources here said.

Mehbooba will reach Jammu tomorrow, a day ahead of oath taking and will hold discussions with the party leaders and leader of the BJP legislative party Dr Nirmal Singh on composition of the ministry and distribution of portfolios.

Mehbooba will also hold a meeting with the party leadership to restructure PDP in wake of the new government formation.

In this direction, a joint communique was sent to Governor N N Vohra by PDP and BJP.

BJP also stamped its approval on the date of oath taking as April 4 at a meeting of its party leadership headed by National General Secretary Ram Madhav, who arrived here last evening for the meeting.

The core group of the party met at the residence of Dr Nirmal Singh and finalised the list of ministers and portfolios.

Later talking to reporters before flying to New Delhi last night in a special plane, Madhav said that all issues between the two parties have been sorted out during the three-day long discussions between leaders of the two parties.

Madhav said it is good that Mehbooba Mufti is going to take over as the first woman Chief Minister of the state.

"A clean, good and development-oriented government is our priority," he said.

PDP and BJP had staked claim for government formation on March 26, two days after Mehbooba was elected as PDP's legislature party leader.

After the death of her father, who headed PDP-BJP coalition government for 10 months from March 1, last year until his death on January 7, this year, Mehbooba had been reluctant to take over as CM of the PDP-BJP coalition government.

She had been seeking assurances from the central government on implementation of Agenda of Alliance, Common Minimum Programme (CMP) framed by the two parties last year.

Mehbooba also sought some J&K specific confidence building measures.

However, her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 22 ended the over two-months-long deadlock on government formation in the state.