Cracks are widening within the National Conference as internal dissent has turned into an open confrontation between the party leadership and its sitting Member of Parliament, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi.
The NC leader’s charge of Delhi being behind the Aga Ruhullah’s rebellion comes a month after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had accused the BJP of attempting to poach party legislators to break the NC.
National Conference MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi on Friday announced that he will resign from both the party and the Lok Sabha in November, citing differences with the party’s stance on Jammu and Kashmir’s political future. The NC leader’s charge of Delhi being behind the Aga Ruhullah’s rebellion comes a month after Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had accused the BJP of attempting to poach party legislators to break the NC. It was NC that made him an MP. He is not Eknath, he is Aiknath – meaning alone. No one will join him. He will remain isolated and will vanish from the political scene.”
Terming the development as an extension of Delhi’s plot to split the National Conference, senior party leader and legislator from Banihal, Sajad Shaheen, said similar attempts were made in 1984 as well, but failed to succeed. The rebel MP argued that the NC’s acceptance of statehood as the political horizon was no different from the BJP’s position, adding that this legitimised the constitutional changes of August 2019. Mehdi said the party had promised restoration of Articles 370 and 35A in its 2024 manifesto despite knowing the BJP was in power, questioning whether those promises were ever intended to be fulfilled.
Dismissing Ruhullah’s independent political stature, Shaheen said, “He is a big zero without NC. Mocking speculation that Ruhullah could engineer a Maharashtra-like split, Shaheen said, “Aga can never become Eknath Shinde of NC.
