National Conference (NC) leader and Member of Parliament (MP) from Srinagar, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi has Decided to resign his Lok Sabha seat and face a fresh election. Mehdi, who won the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in NC ticket in 2024 has also decided to part ways with the party.
The announcement comes days after NC President Farooq Abdullah dared Mehdi to quit and face a fresh election.
Mehdi spoke to the media in Srinagar in Friday and said that he would send his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker and NC president Farooq Abdullah on November 3, the 26th death anniversary of his father Aga Mehdi, who was killed in an IED blast in 2000 in Kashmir.
Mehdi has planned public rally in his stronghold Budgam, a district which falls in Sringar Lok Sabha seat, on his father’s death anniversary. Mehdi is expected toformally release his resignation letter and the reasons for quitting as MP.
“Yes, I am resigning from the party and as Srinagar MP. I have a few commitments before I formally submit my resignation. I have to disburse funds under MPLADS (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme). I have also invited some MPs for a conference in Srinagar as part of my efforts to fight for restoration of J&K’s constitutional rights,” Mehdi was quoted as saying by NDTV.
Strained relationship with NC leadership
Mehdi has had a strained relations with NC leadership for quite some time now. He has blamed the party and CM Omar Abdullah for failing to fulfil the promises on which the NC won a landslide victory in the 2024 Assembly polls.
In October last year, the party lost the by-election for the Budgam Assembly seat, which was vacated by Omar Abdullah who had won two seats in the 2024 Assembly election.
The loss was attributed to Mehdi’s refusal to campaign for the party candidate and his strong criticism of the the CM. After the party’s defeat, Omar said Mehdi had committed “political suicide”.
Mehdi has often blamed Omar Abdullah for abandoning the party’s ideology and its commitment to fight for the restoration of special status under the abrogated Article 370.
“Once by-elections are announced, I will consult people and I may contest the by-election as an independent candidate,” he said.
Letter to NC President
Earlier on Friday, Mehdi also wrote a letter to the NC president Farooq Abdullah blaming the ruling party for changing its political position on Article 370 and statehood and sought answers from the former CM on Article 370.
In a two-page letter to party president NC Chief, who had asked him to seek a fresh mandate for opposing the party line, Mehdi asserted that his resignation would come “even without you asking, but before that must come accountability”.
Taking to X, Mehdi said he has written a letter to his party president in response to the latter’s public demand for his resignation.
“Awaiting his response to the questions I have asked in the letter,” Mehdi said in the post.
‘Not seeking economic concessions from the Centre’
Referencing Abdullah’s recent press statement urging Kashmiris to be self-reliant rather than seeking economic concessions from the Centre, Mehdi said that those words resonated deeply with him, capturing the frustration of being expected to assume a “posture of supplication” before the BJP.
However, the Shia leader questioned why the party leadership objected when he raised the very same concerns about Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional rights.
“The uncomfortable truth is that we are not even ‘begging’ for Article 370; we are ‘begging’ for statehood – a right the Supreme Court itself has recognised,” Mehdi said in his two-page letter, arguing that NC’s current position has become indistinguishable from that of the BJP.
Mehdi warned that accepting statehood as the outer limit of political aspirations risks legitimising the constitutional changes of August 2019 and surrendering essential protections for the region’s land, culture, and fragile environment.
Questioning the party’s core narrative, Mehdi pointed out that the NC fought and won the 2024 Assembly elections on the promise of restoring Articles 370 and 35A.
“Today, we conveniently argue that the very regime which abrogated Article 370 will never restore it… That would have been a fair argument. But the BJP was also in power when we drafted our 2024 manifesto. So, why did we include the restoration of Article 370 in our manifesto?
We are not even ‘begging’ for Article 370; we are ‘begging’ for statehood – a right the Supreme Court itself has recognised.
Mehdi argued if that is the case, then this is not merely a political “misjudgement”, it is a “sin”, a “brazen moral failure” of deliberately misleading an entire population that has already endured decades of suffering and voted for the party with hope, trust and the expectation that it would honour its word.
