After being challenged by NC president Farooq Abdullah to face voters without party support, Ruhullah has indicated that he could resign around November 3.
Srinagar MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has taken his long-running fight with the National Conference leadership closer to the breaking point, accusing his party of moving towards “compromise” on issues it once promised to fight.
‘I looked behind and found my party gone’
Ruhullah’s latest remarks sum up a political relationship that has been breaking down for years. A three-time former MLA from Budgam, he served as a minister in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state and was once the party’s chief spokesperson. Ruhullah later stepped down as NC’s chief spokesperson. The protest put the Srinagar MP publicly alongside young demonstrators who were demanding changes from a government run by his own party. Relations deteriorated further when Ruhullah refused to campaign for the National Conference candidate in the Budgam by-election. He also distanced himself from party protests that he believed were focused mainly on restoring statehood. Ruhullah has also taken positions on religious and minority issues that have become part of his wider dispute with the NC leadership. In Parliament, he opposed compulsory singing of Vande Mataram, arguing that forcing people to follow a cultural practice can conflict with religious freedom and constitutional rights. He has linked his position to what he sees as a larger responsibility towards India’s minorities. Ruhullah has called for “statesmanship, sensitivity and courage not another compromise. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah challenged Ruhullah to resign from Parliament and contest the Srinagar seat again without the party’s backing. His argument was simple: if Ruhullah believed he had an independent political mandate, he should prove it before voters. Ruhullah did not reject the challenge. Before taking that step, he has spoken about completing certain political commitments, including an MPs’ conference focused on constitutional rights. If he follows through, the decision would end a relationship with the National Conference that stretches back more than two decades. The National Conference has largely treated Ruhullah’s attacks as the views of an individual leader rather than the position of the party. The leadership’s argument is that political decisions have to reflect the limits of governing Jammu and Kashmir as a Union Territory. Ruhullah, however, believes those limits cannot become a reason to retreat from commitments made to voters. That disagreement is now bigger than a dispute between two leaders.
Because ruhullah spent much of his political career inside the National Conference, the split is striking. Because it is the death anniversary of his father, the date carries personal importance. His father, Aga Syed Mehdi, was killed in an IED blast in 2000. Ruhullah entered the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in 2002 and went on to win successive elections. The NC fielded him from Srinagar in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, where he won the seat after campaigning on issues that included Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status. The dispute goes back to the changes of August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was effectively abrogated and Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two Union Territories. He argued that the party’s response did not match the scale of what had happened and objected to any political strategy that put restoration of statehood ahead of the wider Article 370 question. The issue became sharper after the National Conference returned to power in Jammu and Kashmir in 2024. The party’s election manifesto had promised to work for the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A, but Ruhullah accused the leadership of failing to keep that issue at the centre of its politics. Ruhullah’s differences with the party were not limited to Article 370. In December 2024, he joined students protesting against Jammu and Kashmir’s reservation policy outside Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s residence. By August 2026, what had largely been an internal dispute had turned into an open political confrontation. Ruhullah has indicated that he could formally leave both his Lok Sabha seat and the National Conference around November 3. It is a fight over what the National Conference promised before returning to power and how far it should go in confronting the political changes made in Jammu and Kashmir after 2019. November 3 could determine whether that fight remains inside the National Conference or turns into a new political battle outside it.
The Srinagar MP says he repeatedly took positions on major political and constitutional issues only to find that his party was no longer standing with him. “At a time when minorities are being pushed to the wall, “let’s not normalise the communal onslaught If we do not stand up for their legitimate concerns across India, who will?,” he said. Instead, he said resignation would come after “accountability” and after he completed commitments connected with constitutional rights.
