As Ruhullah Mehdi resigns from NC, some praise from the BJP

Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah Mehdi Tuesday signed a two-page resignation from the podium, in front of thousands of supporters in Budgam. The signature, he said, ensures his freedom from the National Conference. He has also emailed his resignation from the Srinagar Parliamentary Constituency to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

With this, he has ended his 24-year association with the party. Ruhullah spoke directly to his voters at the Behisht-e-Zehra park on Tuesday, tearing into the National Conference and the politics of J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

He accused NC president Farooq Abdullah of lying to the people of J&K about the fight for the restoration of Article 370, and backtracking on their promises to the people. After signing the resignation letter, in a symbolic gesture, he handed over the document to Muhammad Ashraf Mattoo, father of 17-year-old Tufail Mattoo, who was killed in 2010 in alleged police firing when Omar Abdullah was chief minister.

Ruhullah contested the 2002 assembly election from Budgam after his father, Aga Syed Mehdi, was assassinated in a suspected militant attack in Budgam on November 3, 2000. He chose his father’s death anniversary as the day to announce his resignation from both party and post.

He has represented the Budgam assembly constituency over three tenures and successfully contested the Srinagar parliamentary election for the first time in 2024. The seat was previously contested and represented by NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah and Ruhullah’s candidature from the seat came after Abdullah declined from contesting again, given his stronghold over central Kashmir’s Budgam district and importantly, his stature as a Shia religious leader.

After winning the seat, Ruhullah along with senior NC leadership was made part of the NC’s manifesto committee and that manifesto eventually became one of the key sticking points between Ruhullah and the NC. He also campaigned for several candidates in the 2024 Assembly elections, including for Omar Abdullah, who contested the Budgam constituency as a second seat.

The move has drawn praise from the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, with its national vice-president Ram Madhav saying Ruhullah had the blessing of “our people”. “I would not like to comment as it is the internal matter of the National Conference.

But it’s all before you that the National Conference is visibly divided today, and Ruhullah is holding the rally today with the blessings of our people,” said Madhav, who played a key role in the formation of the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir in 2015-16, after the 2014 Assembly elections threw up a hung verdict.

He, however, denied the BJP’s role in the developments within the National Conference. The BJP leader also declined to speculate on possible political developments in the future, saying it was too early to draw such conclusions.

“Today, one of their own MPs has come out and is holding a programme…. This is their internal affair. What do we have to do with it?” he asked. “Let me reiterate that we have no involvement in the internal affairs of the NC.

Whatever statements our MLAs make are a separate matter.” Differences between him and the party spilled into public domain after he accompanied students protesting the lack of adequate representation in the open merit in education and jobs in J&K.

In December 2024, Ruhullah stood with them outside the chief minister’s residence at Gupkar Road. He was, since then, not seen at the party’s internal meetings and the party MLAs remained absent from Ruhullah’s constituency-related administrative meetings.

He then began questioning the party’s departure from its ideological stand and accused them of abandoning its core principles. On Tuesday, Ruhullah, tore into the Omar Abdullah government’s performance on several promises of the party’s election manifesto.

“Rationalisation of reservation, 200 units of electricity, restoration of constitutional guarantees, that was the fight. You don’t remember how you pulled your cap off your head and placed it before the people,” he said.

Accusing the CM of “disappointing every Kashmiri” by going to the Prime Minister and Home Minister with shawls after he won the Assembly election, Ruhullah said, “You lied and misled the people, you used me. My people had faith on me.” He also repeated Omar’s words to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration on the Z Morh tunnel at Sonmarg in January 2025 where he said, “Prime Minister saheb, you might have seen the weather has supported you; there is not a single cloud in the sky." Ruhullah said that if he were truly Kashmiri, he would know that a lack of clouds during the chillai kalan (Kashmir’s coldest period in the year) “is actually a bad omen.” “How would a BJP government (in J&K) look any different from the one we have?” Ruhullah asked.

He highlighted that the NC says that those who have taken away constitutional guarantees enshrined in Article 370 will not be the ones to return it. “Where was this language during the elections?” he asked, adding that he will not be part of this lie, nor will he let the people of Kashmir be a part of it.

Addressing the BJP and the RSS, Ruhullah said, “Enough is enough. The people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh will not compromise with their dignity any longer. You can use as much force as you want, but our constitutional protections are our right, and we consider those our dignity.”