People's Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti on Monday took her oath as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, after the top post lay vacant for nearly three months since the demise of her father and incumbent Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, reported ANI. Governor NN Vohra administered the swearing-in oath to the 56-year-old, who is the first woman to hold the office in the state. The PDP, in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, has 56 MLAs in the 87-member Assembly. Sajad Gani Lone led Peoples' Conference is also part of the coalition.

The 13th chief minister of the state took the oath of office and secrecy along with 16 Cabinet ministers and eight ministers of state. Two new BJP legislators, Sham Lal Choudhary and Ajay Nanda, were inducted in the state cabinet. PDP's Syed Farooq Andrabi also found a place in the new cabinet, while Altaf Bukhari was dropped.

BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav was present at the ceremony. In an unprecedented step, the government allowed only national broadcaster Doordarshan and news agency ANI to cover the ceremony, tweeted opposition party leader and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah

The state has been under governor's rule since January as Mehbooba Mufti had earlier held that she wasn't ready to carry on with the alliance with the BJP that her father had forged as she felt that the saffron party violated the alliance agenda.