Mehbooba open to advice, but cannot be dictated

It was the beginning of hard times for Mehbooba Mufti since April 4 when she took over as the first woman Chief Minister of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir. She completed first month in office on Wednesday and is now seen as a “tougher administrator” than her father and as a “good listener to sound advice”, feel the men and women around her.
Everyone around her — ministers, bureaucrats and political leaders — have recognised her “command as a leader” and not to commit mistake of “underestimating her” or as an “inexperienced hand in governing the state.”
“She is her own person,” said a minister who had worked in the government of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed too.
Some of her colleagues pointed out that her administrative experience dates back to 2002 when her father first became the Chief Minister. During his second tenure, her learning process was active and more participative. She has a lot of streaks of her father in political and administrative dealings. But she is a “tougher administrator”.
“Mufti Saheb could decide things as soon as the matter would crop up, for he had rich experience. It will take some time for Mehbooba to reach that level,” the minister said.
“She compensates for the decades of experience of her father by listening to the minutest detail,” another minister said.
In administrative circles, she makes it known that she knows things, and how to go about the crucial matters. “There is more of a matter-of-fact approach in her,” a senior officer said about her style of working.
Mehbooba Mufti’s innings started on a difficult note — the local versus non-local students’ issue at the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, and street protests and killing of five civilians following an alleged molestation of a girl in the north-west Kashmir town of Handwara.
Her positives have so far been more in pitching for the youth of Kashmir, development of the state and promoting the image of Kashmir as safe destination for tourists.
She doesn’t want the real talent and potential of the youth and the developmental needs and the attention these issues deserve to be lost in what she calls “din of violence”. The idea at work seems to “own our own people”. At the same time, she is aware that her innings will be judged by the political standpoint.
Here, she has not minced words and has stood her ground for the “special status” of the state as an non-challengeable statute in the Constitution of India.
Within her party, the PDP, the Chief Minister has effected certain changes in the organisational set-up and at the same time, she is is open to discuss each and every issue as a political
leader with her party colleagues, including the ones who are not happy with certain things.
She knows that she is where she because of her party. She knows that the party’s survival and expansion is crucial to her.
But she refuses to get dictated by anyone though her colleagues suggest, and she is open to advice that will help in nurturing the party and leading the government.
Her first month has been marked by criticism too, particularly in the aftermath of the Handwara incident and the manner in which her government got the bypoll to the Anantnag Assembly constituency postponed.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah finds no government visible on the ground. There are issues on which he finds Mehbooba Mufti toeing the BJP line.
Only time will tell how she will deal with the ticklish issues in hand and those likely to come up in the future for it will be much more difficult for Mehbooba to defend her alliance with the BJP than it was for her father.
Mehbooba had an image of a strong Kashmiri leader. That image has been diluted to some extent and how she will steer through this image crisis as the political leader of Kashmir with BJP as her alliance partner is a big test for her. It is just the beginning as Chief Minister of the most difficult state of the country to govern.