Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. He was 79. The Mufti’s daughter and the president of his Peoples Democratic Party, Mehbooba Mufti, 56, is expected to take over as the first woman chief minister of the state. The PDP rules Jammu and Kashmir in partnership with the BJP. Mr Sayeed had been in hospital for two weeks and was being treated for a lung infection. He was put on ventilator support after his condition worsened.

Mufti’s body is being flown back to state capital Srinagar. His last rites will be performed in his ancestral village in Anantnag’s Bijbehara in south Kashmir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tribute at the Palam airport a short while ago.

In a long career in politics, Mr Sayeed was a Congressman till 1987. He was Minister for Tourism in the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986, after which he joined former Prime Minister V P Singh’s National Front government as Home Minister. His short stint there (1989-90) was marred by the kidnapping by Kashmiri militants of his daughter Rubaiyya Sayeed.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the patron of PDP, took oath as chief minister on March 1 last year, after weeks of negotiations with the BJP, an ideological opposite. It was his second stint as chief minister. He had held the post between 2002 and 2005, as an ally of the Congress. Mr Sayeed was part of the Congress for many years before he broke away in 1999 to launch his party along with his daughter.