Srinagar: Four new ministers were sworn in on Tuesday as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expanded his council of ministers.
All four new inductees, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Mir Saifullah, Shameema Firdous, and Altaf Ahmad Wani, also known as Kalloo, are from the Kashmir Valley. The expansion comes amid indications that one sitting minister is likely to be dropped from the council.
Sagar, a former minister and seven-time MLA, was first elected to the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly from the Batamaloo constituency in 1983 and retained the seat in 1987. He later shifted to Khanyar, where he won elections in 1996.
The National Conference (NC) general secretary has never lost an assembly election. In the 2024 polls, he won the Khanyar seat by a margin of 9,912 votes, defeating former Srinagar deputy mayor Sheikh Imran, who contested as an independent candidate.
Mir, who has represented the Kupwara constituency in north Kashmir three times, was elected from Trehgam after delimitation in the 2024 assembly elections.
Pahalgam MLA Wani and Habbakadal MLA Firdous took oath as ministers for the first time. Wani has represented Pahalgam twice, while Firdous won the Habbakadal seat for the third time in 2024.
Firdous, who also heads the NC's women's wing, is the second woman in Abdullah's council of ministers, after Sakina Itoo.
Sagar took the oath in Urdu, while Saifullah, Firdous and Wani took their oaths in English.
Ahead of the cabinet expansion, all ministers had submitted their resignations to the chief minister.
The ceremony was attended by Abdullah, Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Chaudhary, Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather, Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, NC president Farooq Abdullah and MLAs from the ruling alliance and opposition parties, including the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Abdullah-led cabinet previously had six members. Under the applicable rules, the council of ministers in a Union Territory can comprise up to 10 per cent of the assembly's strength. Jammu and Kashmir has a 90-member Assembly.
The Congress, an ally of the government, has stayed out of the council of ministers. The party has maintained that it will not join the government until statehood is restored.
