Former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister calls reorganisation ‘routine’, says it’s as per ‘seniority and availability’.
New Delhi: Faced with an internal rebellion, Mehbooba Mufti has changed the organisational structure of her Peoples Democratic Party, leaving out her closest confidants including brother Tassaduq Hussain Mufti.
Soon after the BJP pulled out of their alliance and Mehbooba had to resign as J&K chief minister, party members came out alleging that the PDP was run exclusively by her family. And while Mehbooba has revamped the party, the members who had openly criticised her — MLAs Javaid Baig, Imran Ansari, Abdul Majeed Paddar, Mohammad Abbaas Wani and Abid Ansari, and MLCs Yasir Reshi and Saifuddin Bhat — have unsurprisingly been left out.
Family members
On 23 July, Mehbooba’s uncle Sartaj Madni had resigned as PDP vice-president, and was replaced by senior leader Abdul Rehman Veeri. Now, apart from Tassaduq, another member of the family who has been kept away is her uncle Farooq Andrabi, who had resigned as minister of state for Haj and Auqaf to pave the way for Tassaduq in the erstwhile state cabinet.
Speaking to ThePrint, Mehbooba called it a routine rejig, which happened on the basis of only “seniority and availability”.
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“It is a normal exercise in any political party. After the fall of the PDP-BJP government, we had more senior leaders available now to take the responsibility of party affairs. Some of them held ministerial portfolios earlier,” she said.
On the exclusion of her brother and uncles, she said: “He (Tassaduq) will be doing what others like him are doing. The thought behind the posts is only seniority and availability.”
Interestingly, Naeem Akhtar, a close aide and confidant of Mehbooba’s late father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who has always been at the forefront of party affairs, has been sidelined.
Akhtar told ThePrint that the new structure was the PDP president’s “prerogative and preference”, and that he had no other comment to offer except that he would always be there for the party as an “ordinary worker”.
Other office-bearers
Syed Altaf Bukhari, the man who replaced former J&K Bank chief Haseeb Drabu as the state’s finance minister, is now the treasurer of the party. Drabu, one of the architects of the PDP-BJP alliance, had been sacked for saying that “Kashmir is not a political issue”.
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The new general secretaries include Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura, Abdul Haq Khan, Mehboob Iqbal, S. Surinder Choudhary and F.C. Bhagat.
Political Affairs Committee
The Political Affairs Committee, the top decision-making body of the party headed by Mehbooba, has also been reconstituted. Senior leader and MP Muzaffar Hussain Baig is part of it, as are Veeri, Mohammad Dilawar Mir, Mehboob Beg, Syed Basharat Bukhari, Nizammuddin Bhat, Yashpal Sharma, Chaudhry Zulfikar, Syed Asgar Ali, Falail Singh, Ashraf Mir, Haji Anayat Ali, Rafiq Hussain Khan and Qiza Afzal.
Old-timer Ved Mahajan who also played an important role in Mufti Sayeed’s era has been dropped from the list.