SrinagarHaving apparently overcome its initial indecision, the PDP-BJP coalition government seems to be set to expand and reshuffle its council of ministers in the first week of March.
Both parties are keen to induct fresh faces to offset the incumbency effect, and sources indicated that changes would be nominal on the PDPs side but significant in the portfolios allotted to the BJP.
The reshuffle, likely to be announced by March 7, had become necessary when the PDP brought in Tassaduq Hussain Mufti and Javed Mustafa Mir as cabinet ministers, raising its strength to 12 in the council, sources said.
The Chief Minister later allotted theTourism portfolio to her brother Tassaduq Mufti while Mir was assigned Disaster Management, Relief Rehabilitation and Reconstruction and Floriculture departments.
As a result, senior PDP member Abdul Rehman Veeri was divested of Disaster Management, Relief Rehabilitation & Reconstruction portfolios, given charge of Parliamentary Affairs and Hajj and Auqaf, and was asked to continue with his Revenue portfolio. In the process, Syed Farooq Andrabi had tendered his resignation from the ministry of Hajj & Auqaf.
The BJP, with only eight members, including the deputy chief minister, of the cabinet rank, is likely to elevate one of its three ministers of state.The incumbent PDP ministers include Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Abdul Rehman Veeri, Ghulam Nabi Lone, Abdul Haq Khan, Syed Basharat Ahmed Bukhari, Haseeb A. Drabu, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali, Naeem Akhtar, Imran Raza Ansari, Mohammad Altaf Bukhari, Javaid Mustafa Mir, Tassaduq Hussain Mufti, Asiea Naqash and Zahoor Ahmad Mir. Naqash and Mir are Ministers of State (MoS). The BJP has deputy chief minister Dr. Nirmal Kumar Singh, Chander Parkash, Bali Bhagat, Lal Singh, Sajad Gani Lone, Chering Dorjay, Sham Lal Chaudhary, Abdul Ghani Kohli, Sunil Kumar Sharma (MoS), Priya Sethi (MoS), and Ajay Nanda (MoS).
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