Mehbooba Mufti Birthday: Must-know facts about the first female CM of Jammu & Kashmir

Mehbooba Mufti, an Indian politician who was the 9th and also the last Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), was born on May 22, 1959, in Bijbehara. In 2023, on this date, she turns 64. On her birthday, take a moment to recall her decades-long political career and the turbulent times she faced during its course.

All you need to know about Mehbooba Mufti:

• The daughter of former J&K Chief Minister (CM) Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, she attained a law degree from the University of Kashmir and worked with the Bombay Mercantile Bank before moving back to her home state in the early 1990s.

• Popularly elected in 1996 to the State Assembly from Bijbehara with the Indian National Congress and became the leader of the opposition during Farooq Abdullah’s tenure as Chief Minister.

• Defeated incumbent Mirza Mehboob Beg to gain a Lok Sabha seat from Anantnag from 2004 to 2014.

• Post her father’s death in 2016, she headed the coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir with a continued alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the second time.

• In 2018, after a rift between her party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the BJP which was in a coalition with it over the latter’s support for the rapist in the Kathua rape case, she tendered her resignation which resulted in the collapse of the government.

• Mehbooba Mufti was detained multiple times after her government’s collapse, especially after the Central Government introduced bills in Parliament to abrogate Article 370 which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.