Mehbooba Mufti

Mehbooba Mufti Sayeed is the president of the Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party in India. She is the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

Dr Mehbooba, born May 22, 1959, acquired a law degree from Kashmir University but showed no signs of any flair for public life in the late 1980s, when bringing up two infant daughters - Iltija, now 18, and Irtiqa, now 16 - and the other travails of married life occupied her time since she was soon to separate from her husband. Her estranged husband went on to dog the Mufti's political career contesting a number of elections against him.

When elections for the state assembly were held in 1996, Mehbooba became one of the most popular members - elected from Bijbehara on an Indian National Congress ticket. Her father had at that time returned to the Congress, which he had left in 1987, angry at the alliance that party had formed with its traditional rival in the state, the National Conference.

Dr Mehbooba quickly made a mark as the leader of opposition in the assembly, taking on the government of then chief minister Farooq Abdullah with asperity.

Dr Mehbooba is the only prominent female politician from the Kashmir state who is recognized nation wide.

So high was her public profile that, when Mufti split from the Indian National Congress to form the Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party in 1999, many thought she would be the party president.

She deferred to her father's experience and became party vice-president. She resigned her assembly seat and went on to contest the parliament elections in 1999 from Srinagar where she lost to the sitting member Omar Abdullah but won the Pahalgam seat from south Kashmir defeating Rafi Ahmed Mir when assembly elections were held again in 2002. She was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 and is a prominent member of the ruling, Congress Party-led coalition.