Mehbooba Mufti was sworn in as the first woman Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
A leader with grassroots-level popularity, Mehbooba Mufti turned Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into a regional force and emerged from the shadow of her illustrious father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to head Jammu and Kashmir, the first woman Chief Minister of the state.
A law graduate, 56-year-old Mehbooba Mufti took a plunge into mainstream politics of the state in 1996 by joining Congress, along with her father, at a time when militancy was at its peak.
She is credited with growth of the PDP with some observers arguing that she outshone her father in connecting with the common people, especially the youths.
She was also accused of playing the soft-separatist card.
PDP chose the green colour for the party flag and adopted Pen- Inkpot election symbol of the Muslim United Front (MUF) of 1987, but these moves found some resonances on the ground among the Kashmir residents.
Heading a PDP-BJP government formed with an alliance between two ideological extremes, Ms Mufti faces a challenging task ahead as she will strive to carry forward her father's 'healing touch' legacy.
A mother of two daughters, she assumed an image of a fiery leader and won her first Assembly election as a Congress candidate from her home segment of Bijbehara.
She then played a key role in her father's victory as Congress candidate in Lok Sabha elections of 1998 when he defeated National Conference's Mohammad Yousuf Taing from south Kashmir.
As Mufti Mohammad Sayeed felt an urge to do something for return of peace to Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti was by his side and the father-daughter duo floated their regional party - the PDP - in 1999.
They took along some leaders disgruntled with National Conference and many from Congress, a party where Sayeed spent most of his six-decade political career.
From there, Ms Mufti took on the responsibility of building the new party.
Ms Mufti used to visit the homes of those killed in militancy-related violence and immediately struck a chord with the people, especially women, often lending them a shoulder to cry on.
In the 2002 Assembly polls, termed as watershed in the state, the PDP bagged 16 seats - most of them from south where Ms Mufti had extensively campaigned and consolidated the support for her party and her father was sworn-in as the chief minister with the support of his former party Congress.
Two years later, Ms Mufti contested Parliamentary polls from south Kashmir and won her first Lok Sabha election. She contested Lok Sabha elections from Srinagar in 1999 but was defeated by her bete noire Omar Abdullah.
The new government has also retained two woman ministers from the earlier coalition--- Priya Seth (BJP) and Asiya Nakash (PDP).
Apart from Nirmal Singh, who will lead the BJP flock in the coalition, Chandra Prakash, Bali Bhagat, Lal Singh, Dorje, Abdul Gani Kolhi, Ajay Handa, Sunil Kumar Sharma are also a part of the new government.
From the PDP's side, Ghulam Nabi Lone, Abdul Rehman Veeri Abdul Haq Khan, Syed Basharat Ahmed Bukhari, Haseeb Drabu, Syed Naeem Akhtar Andrabi and Zahoor Ahmad Mir were sworn in as ministers.
The ceremony had ministers taking oath in different languages. While Ms Mufti and Nirmal Singh stuck to Urdu and Hindi respectively, Mr Bukhari took his oath in Kashmiri.
BJP's Lal Singh took oath in Punjabi while Mr Dorje chose English.
The two parties came together last year with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed heading the government for 10 months till his death on January 7.
Ms Mufti, who is presently a member of Lok Sabha, will have to resign from her parliamentary seat and will get six months to secure membership of one of the two houses of the state legislature.
The PDP-BJP coalition has 56 MLAs in the 87-member Assembly.
The PDP has 27 members while BJP has 25. Peoples' Conference has two MLAs while two other independents are supporting the coalition.
The revival of the PDP-BJP coalition government in the state -- after three months of stalemate -- became possible after several rounds of hectic negotiations between the two parties and apparent intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Following Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's death, Governor's Rule was imposed in the state as the PDP and the BJP did not stake fresh claim for government formation in the state.
Initially, the two parties maintained that Ms Mufti was not in a position to take over the reins of the state as she was mourning her father's death.
However, after the mourning period was over, the PDP said it was looking for assurances and confidence building measures from the Centre on implementation of Agenda of Alliance -- common minimum programme of the two parties -- before forming the new government.
Hopes of ending the deadlock were raised when BJP general secretary Ram Madhav arrived in Srinagar in a chartered plane to meet Ms Mufti late in the evening on February 17 but nothing came out of the hour-long meeting.
The next high level contact between the two parties came on March 19 when Ms Mufti met BJP president Amit Shah.
Again the two parties failed to resolve the issues, forcing the BJP to publicly admit for the first time that no headway could be made on government formation.
In fact, several PDP leaders went to extent of saying the prospects of an alliance with the BJP were all but over.
However, to everyone's surprise, the PDP president went to meet the Prime Minister three days later and decks were cleared for the formation of the government.