Mufti Mohammad Sayeed

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (12 January 1936 – 7 January 2016) was an Indian politician who served twice as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, during November 2002–November 2005 and March 2015–January 2016. He was also Minister of Tourism in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet and Home Minister of India in V. P. Singh's cabinet.[2] He started in the wing of the National Conference led by G. M. Sadiq, which later merged into the Indian National Congress. He switched to Janata Dal in 1987, eventually founding his own regional party, People's Democratic Party (PDP). The PDP continues to be a political force in Jammu and Kashmir, currently led by his daughter Mehbooba Mufti.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed
6th Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir
In office
1 March 2015 – 7 January 2016
GovernorNarinder Nath Vohra
DeputyNirmal Kumar Singh
Preceded byOmar Abdullah
Succeeded byMehbooba Mufti
In office
2 November 2002 – 2 November 2005
GovernorGirish Chandra Saxena
Srinivas Kumar Sinha
Preceded byGovernor's rule
Succeeded byGhulam Nabi Azad
Minister of Home Affairs
In office
2 December 1989 – 10 November 1990
Prime MinisterV. P. Singh
Preceded bySardar Buta Singh
Succeeded byChandra Shekhar
Minister of Tourism
In office
12 May 1986 – 14 July 1987
Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi
Preceded byHKL Bhagat
Succeeded byJagdish Tytler
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office
1998 (1998)–1999 (1999)
Preceded byMohammad Maqbool Dar
Succeeded byAli Mohammed Naik
ConstituencyAnantnag
In office
1989 (1989)–1991 (1991)
Preceded byDharamvir Singh Tyagi
Succeeded byNaresh Kumar Baliyan
ConstituencyMuzaffarnagar
Personal details
Born(1936-01-12)12 January 1936
Bijbehara, Jammu & Kashmir, India
Died7 January 2016(2016-01-07) (aged 79)
New Delhi, Delhi, India
Political partyJammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party
Other political
affiliations		Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (1950–1965)
Indian National Congress (1965–1987, 1991–1999)
Janata Dal (1987–1991)
Children4 (including Mehbooba Mufti, Tassaduq Hussain Mufti, and Rubaiya Sayeed)[1]
Alma materAligarh Muslim University

Early life

Mufti Sayeed was born on 1936 in Bijbehara town of Anantnag district to a family of clerics. He completed his basic studies in Srinagar and earned his law and postgraduate degree in Arabic from Aligarh Muslim University before entering politics.[3][4][5][6][7]

Politician and former chief minister of Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti is his daughter.[1][8][9]

Political party affiliations

Sayeed started his political career in the 1950s in the Democratic National Conference, a splinter group of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference led by Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq. He was appointed as the district convenor of the party,[10] which merged back into the National Conference in late 1960.[11]

In 1962, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly from Bijbehara. After G. M. Sadiq became the Chief Minister of the state in 1964, Sayeed was appointed as a Deputy Minister in his government.[10]

In January 1965, the National Conference merged into the Indian National Congress.[12] Thus Sayeed became a member of Congress.

In 1972, Sayeed became a cabinet minister and, the president of the state Congress unit.[10][13] He is said to have brought about the downfall of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference government, which was led by Farooq Abdullah, in 1984.[14] He joined the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 as Minister of Tourism.[13] In 1987, he quit the Congress party to join V. P. Singh's Jan Morcha, which led to his becoming the first Muslim Minister for Home Affairs in the Union Cabinet of India for one year, from 1989 to 1990.[15][16]

He rejoined the Congress under P. V. Narasimha Rao, which he left in 1999 along with daughter Mehbooba Mufti to form his own party, the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party.

Political career

Chief Minister: First tenure (2002–2005)
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh being seen off by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Shri Mufti Mohammad Sayeed at the Leh Airport, in Jammu & Kashmir on June 12, 2005
Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Shri Mufti Mohammed Sayeed calls on the Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in New Delhi on December 12, 2003

Mohammad Sayeed participated in the 2002 assembly election and won 18 assembly seats for his Peoples Democratic Party. He went on to form a coalition government with the Indian National Congress, and was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir for a term of three years.[17]

In 2003, he merged the autonomous Special Operations Group with the Jammu and Kashmir Police.[18] It was under his tenure which coincided with the peace process led by Indian Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, with LOC opened for trade and bus service.[19]

Chief Minister: Second tenure (2015–2016)
Shri Mufti Mohammad Sayeed meeting the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on February 27, 2015
The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed calling on the Union Home Minister, Shri Rajnath Singh, in New Delhi on April 07, 2015
The Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Mufti Mohammad Sayeed calling on the President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, in New Delhi on March 28, 2015

In the 2014 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election, the PDP emerged as the single largest party, though it fell short of a majority. Following a coalition agreement between the BJP and the PDP, Sayeed started his second tenure as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 2015.[20]

Union Minister for Home Affairs

In 1989, within few days of taking office as the Union Minister for Home Affairs, his third daughter, Rubaiya, was kidnapped.[21] She was released in exchange for the release of five terrorist.[15] During his tenure as Home Minister of India the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus took place.[22][23][24]

Attacks on his family and himself
Main article: 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed

Besides attacks on family members Sayeed also survived attacks on his life by Kashmiri separatists. His daughter Rubaiya Sayeed was also kidnapped on 9 Dec 1989.[21]

Death
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi paying homage at the mortal remains of Shri Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, at Palam Airport, in New Delhi on January 07, 2016

On 24 December 2015, Sayeed was admitted to the AIIMS hospital in New Delhi. He suffered from neck pain and fever. His condition gradually deteriorated, and he was put on ventilator support. He died on 7 January 2016 due to multi-organ failure[25][26] at about 7:30, according to provincial Education Minister and PDP Spokesman Nayeem Akhter.[27] He was just five days short of his 80th birthday when he died.

Reactions to this death came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, national Home Minister Rajnath Singh at Delhi airport and the 14th Dalai Lama.[28] He was buried at his ancestral burial ground in Bijbehera[29] with state honours. Former Chief Ministers Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad were present at his funeral.[30] Condolences also came from former President Pranab Mukherjee, former deputy prime minister L. K. Advani, Ram Madhav, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, BJP Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, former national Oil Minister Milind Deora, PDP member Rafi Mir and politicians Kalraj Mishra, Jitendra Singh and Ahmed Patel.[27]

According to party member and PDP Chief Spokesperson Mirza Mehboob Beg,[27] the PDP supported his daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, as the next chief minister, while coalition ally BJP expressed "no objection" to her succeeding her father.[30]

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has been laid to rest in Dara Shikoh Garden Bijbehara.

See also

References
  1. "Live: Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to be laid to rest in Bijbehara; Seven-day state mourning declared". Daily News and Analysis. 7 January 2016.
  2. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: Another chance in a chequered career". Business Standard. 24 December 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
  3. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: Much more than Delhi's man in Kashmir". Hindustan Times. 7 January 2016.
  4. "The Sunday Story: A show of hands". The Indian Express. 4 January 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  5. ScoopWhoop (7 January 2016). "Deceased J&K CM Mufti Mohd Sayeed Changed The Way India Negotiated With Terrorists. Here Are 10 Facts You Should Know About Him". ScoopWhoop. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  6. "The Sunday Story: A show of hands". March 2015.
  7. "Dulat disclosures".
  8. Masroor, Shujaat Bukhari and Riyaz (4 April 2016). "Kashmir's first woman chief minister". BBC News. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  9. "J&K gets its first woman CM in Mehbooba Mufti; BJP gets more Cabinet berths - Firstpost". www.firstpost.com. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  10. Nistula Hebbar, J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed dead, The Hindu, 7 January 2016.
  11. Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace 2003, p. 77.
  12. Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace 2003, p. 82.
  13. "Mufti Mohammed Sayeed: A political opportunist and stalwart of J&K". IBNLive. 7 January 2016.
  14. Malik, Mohammed Sayeed (30 October 2002). "Mufti's fateful links". Rediff.com. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  15. Prabhat, Abhishek (29 October 2002). "Profile: Mufti Mohammad Sayeed". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  16. "Mufti: A man caught in the 'mid-stream' tragedy". Hindustan Times. 7 January 2016.
  17. "New leader promises Kashmir 'healing'". BBC News. BBC. 3 November 2002. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  18. "Mufti disbands SOG, merges force with police". Economic Times. 25 February 2003. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  19. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: A master politician who tried to nurture true Indian constituency in Kashmir". Daily News and Analysis. 8 January 2016.
  20. Amit Chaturvedi (27 February 2015). "PM Modi Will Attend Oath Ceremony, Says Jammu and Kashmir's Chief Minister-to-be Mufti Sayeed". NDTV.com.
  21. Sreedharan, Chindu (18 September 1999). "'Elections in J&K have not been fair since 1987'". Rediff.com. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  22. DIN, ZAHIR-UD (20 January 2016). "On 'Holocaust' day, Kashmiris seek probe into Pandit exodus". Srinagar. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  23. Din, Zahir-ud (1 April 2016). "PROBE THE EXODUS". Kashmir Ink. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  24. "19/01/90: When Kashmiri Pandits fled Islamist terror". Rediff. 19 January 2005. Archived from the original on 26 January 2017. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  25. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, passes away at AIIMS Delhi". Indian Express. 7 January 2016.
  26. "J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed passes away". ABP Live. Archived from the original on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  27. "'He provided a healing touch to Kashmir': From PM Modi to Kejriwal, condolences pour in for Mufti Mohammad Sayeed - Firstpost". 7 January 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  28. Yeshe Choesang, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet offers condolences to Ms Mufti, 11 January 2016, Tibet Post International
  29. "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed laid to rest - Only Kashmir - Behind the News". Archived from the original on 26 January 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  30. "CM who brought Jammu with Kashmir dies".

Bibliography
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