Mufti Mohammad Sayeed (12 January 1936 – 7 January 2016; Urdu: مفتی محمد سید) was an Indian politician who served as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir twice from November 2002 to November 2005 and from March 2015 until his death on January 7, 2016. He held various positions, including minister of Tourism in Rajiv Gandhi's cabinet and minister of Home Affairs in V. P. Singh's cabinet.[2] Sayeed began his political career in the wing of the National Conference led by G. M. Sadiq, which later merged with the Indian National Congress. In 1987, he transitioned to the Janata Dal and subsequently founded the People's Democratic Party (PDP), a regional political party that remains influential in Jammu and Kashmir, currently led by his daughter, Mehbooba Mufti.
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed | |
|---|---|
 Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 2015 | |
| 6th Chief Minister of the state of Jammu & Kashmir | |
| In office 1 March 2015 – 7 January 2016 | |
| Governor | Narinder Nath Vohra |
| Deputy | Nirmal Kumar Singh |
| Preceded by | Omar Abdullah |
| Succeeded by | Mehbooba Mufti |
| In office 2 November 2002 – 2 November 2005 | |
| Governor | Girish Chandra Saxena Srinivas Kumar Sinha |
| Preceded by | Governor's rule |
| Succeeded by | Ghulam Nabi Azad |
| Minister of Home Affairs | |
| In office 2 December 1989 – 10 November 1990 | |
| Prime Minister | V. P. Singh |
| Preceded by | Sardar Buta Singh |
| Succeeded by | Chandra Shekhar |
| Minister of Tourism | |
| In office 12 May 1986 – 14 July 1987 | |
| Prime Minister | Rajiv Gandhi |
| Preceded by | HKL Bhagat |
| Succeeded by | Jagdish Tytler |
| Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha | |
| In office 1998–1999 | |
| Preceded by | Mohammad Maqbool Dar |
| Succeeded by | Ali Mohammed Naik |
| Constituency | Anantnag |
| In office 1989–1991 | |
| Preceded by | Dharamvir Singh Tyagi |
| Succeeded by | Naresh Kumar Baliyan |
| Constituency | Muzaffarnagar |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 January 1936 Bijbehara, Jammu & Kashmir, British India |
| Died | 7 January 2016 (aged 79) New Delhi, India |
| Political party | Jammu 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) |
| Children | 4 (including Mehbooba Mufti, Tassaduq Hussain Mufti, Mehmooda Sayeed, and Rubaiya Sayeed)[1] |
| Alma mater | Aligarh Muslim University |
| Occupation | Politician |
Early life
editSayeed was born on 12 January 1936, in Bijbehara, Anantnag district, then part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, British India, into a Kashmiri Shia Muslim clerical family. 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]
His daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, is a politician and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.[1][8][9]
Political party affiliations
editSayeed 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 joined the Rajiv Gandhi's 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 him becoming the first Muslim minister for Home Affairs in the Union Cabinet of India for one year, from 1989 to 1990.[14][15]
He rejoined the Congress under P. V. Narasimha Rao, which he left in 1999 along with his daughter Mehbooba Mufti to form his own party, the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party.[citation needed]
Political career
editChief Minister: First tenure (2002–2005)
edit
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.[16]
In 2003, he merged the autonomous Special Operations Group with the Jammu and Kashmir Police.[17] 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.[18]
Chief Minister: Second tenure (2015–2016)
edit
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.[19]
Union Minister for Home Affairs
editIn 1989, within few days of taking office as the Union Minister for Home Affairs, his third daughter, Rubaiya, was kidnapped in 1989.[20] Under pressure, she was released from captivity. During his tenure as Home Minister of India the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus took place.[21][22][23]
Attacks on his family and himself
editBesides attacks on family members Sayeed also survived attacks on his life by Kashmiri separatists. His daughter Rubaiya Sayeed was also kidnapped on 9 December 1989.[20]
Death
edit
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[24][25] at about 7:30, according to provincial Education Minister and PDP Spokesman Nayeem Akhter.[26] 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.[27] He was buried at his ancestral burial ground in Bijbehera[28] with state honours. Former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad were present at his funeral.[29] 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.[26]
According to party member and PDP chief spokesperson Mirza Mehboob Beg,[26] the PDP supported his daughter, Mehbooba Mufti, as the next chief minister, while coalition ally BJP expressed "no objection" to her succeeding her father.[29]
Sayeed has been laid to rest in Dara Shikoh Garden Bijbehara.[30]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Live: Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to be laid to rest in Bijbehara; Seven-day state mourning declared". Daily News and Analysis. 7 January 2016.
- ^ "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: Another chance in a chequered career". Business Standard. 24 December 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
- ^ "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: Much more than Delhi's man in Kashmir". Hindustan Times. 7 January 2016.
- ^ "The Sunday Story: A show of hands". The Indian Express. 4 January 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "The Sunday Story: A show of hands". March 2015.
- ^ "Dulat disclosures".
- ^ Masroor, Shujaat Bukhari and Riyaz (4 April 2016). "Kashmir's first woman chief minister". BBC News. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
- ^ "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.
- ^ a b c Nistula Hebbar, J&K Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed dead, The Hindu, 7 January 2016.
- ^ Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace 2003, p. 77.
- ^ Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace 2003, p. 82.
- ^ a b "Mufti Mohammed Sayeed: A political opportunist and stalwart of J&K". IBNLive. 7 January 2016.
- ^ Prabhat, Abhishek (29 October 2002). "Profile: Mufti Mohammad Sayeed". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
- ^ "Mufti: A man caught in the 'mid-stream' tragedy". Hindustan Times. 7 January 2016.
- ^ "New leader promises Kashmir 'healing'". BBC News. BBC. 3 November 2002. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
- ^ "Mufti disbands SOG, merges force with police". Economic Times. 25 February 2003. Archived from the original on 5 February 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
- ^ "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed: A master politician who tried to nurture true Indian constituency in Kashmir". Daily News and Analysis. 8 January 2016.
- ^ Amit Chaturvedi (27 February 2015). "PM Modi Will Attend Oath Ceremony, Says Jammu and Kashmir's Chief Minister-to-be Mufti Sayeed". NDTV.com.
- ^ a b Sreedharan, Chindu (18 September 1999). "'Elections in J&K have not been fair since 1987'". Rediff.com. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Din, Zahir-ud (1 April 2016). "PROBE THE EXODUS". Kashmir Ink. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, passes away at AIIMS Delhi". Indian Express. 7 January 2016.
- ^ "J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed passes away". ABP Live. Archived from the original on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
- ^ a b c "'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.
- ^ Yeshe Choesang, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet offers condolences to Ms Mufti, 11 January 2016, Tibet Post International
- ^ "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed laid to rest - Only Kashmir - Behind the News". Archived from the original on 26 January 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
- ^ a b "CM who brought Jammu with Kashmir dies".
- ^ Ehsan, Mir (8 January 2016). "Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, laid to rest in Mughal era park he developed". The Indian Express. Retrieved 11 October 2024.
Bibliography
edit- Bose, Sumantra (2003), Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01173-2
External links
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