South Kashmir: Minha Lateef, the youngest woman winner of the maiden District Development Council (DDC) polls and is also one of three candidates who have given the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) its first-ever electoral success in Kashmir.
Minha, who is in the seventh semester of her law degree at Kashmir University, won from Kakapora II seat of Pulwama.
In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, Minha said that this win is the significance of woman empowerment in Kashmir.
"Keeping a few seats reserved for ladies is a welcome step by which woman who has been kept very behind in every field can work for the welfare of woman folk. It is the mandate for development in my constituency," Minha said.
"I wanted to make sure I have a background that can support my career in public service. People have shown their support towards me and I will definitely work for them. I have also promised to work on the ground level and public development is the only motto of our party," she said.
Minha comes from a political family. Her father Lateef Bhat, a former Congressman since 2004 switched to the BJP in 2017. He is vice president of the party’s J&K wing of Minority Morcha.
Minha secured 364 votes, 16 more than her rival Ruqaya Bano from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), one of the regional parties in the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD).
However, with the BJP getting its first electoral victories in the Valley, there appears to be a slow but tangible shift in the political winds in the Union Territory.
In the Kashmir region, the BJP emerged victorious in one ward each in Pulwama, Bandipora and Srinagar.
These victories assume all the more significant as this was the first electoral process to have been held in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, which provided for special status to the erstwhile state.
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