Onlykashmir.in News Desk
National Conference Lok Sabha member Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has confirmed he will resign both as Srinagar MP and from the party’s primary membership, but has insisted that accountability must precede any such step. In a pointed three page letter addressed to party president Dr Farooq Abdullah, Ruhullah responded to the veteran leader’s public challenge that he step down and seek a fresh mandate from the electorate.
The Srinagar MP wrote that Farooq’s own remarks questioning Jammu and Kashmir’s dependence on Delhi had resonated with him, and asked why he should now be criticised for raising similar questions about the region’s political standing. At the centre of his letter lies a sharp critique of the National Conference’s current position on the restoration of Article 370 and statehood. Ruhullah argued that treating statehood as the immediate political goal amounts to accepting a substitute for the constitutional provisions withdrawn in August 2019.
He recalled that the party’s 2024 election manifesto had explicitly promised restoration of Articles 370 and 35A, a pledge made even as the BJP held power at the Centre, and questioned whether the commitment was ever genuinely intended to be honoured. Ruhullah warned that reducing the political demand to statehood alone risks normalising what he termed the constitutional assault of 2019 and effectively accepting New Delhi’s settlement for the region.
For Ruhullah, Article 370 stands for more than a legal clause. He described it as shorthand for the dignity, guarantees and liberties of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, linking his argument to unemployment, land rights, religious and linguistic freedoms, and growing environmental degradation from unchecked mining, deforestation and construction in ecologically fragile zones.
The MP also invoked Farooq Abdullah’s own history, pointing to the Autonomy Resolution passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly during his tenure as Chief Minister, and asked what had changed since then, the aspirations of the people or the party’s willingness to stand by them. Responding to Farooq’s reported remarks questioning his political credentials before joining the National Conference, Ruhullah described himself as the son of a martyr and inheritor of a long tradition of sacrifice, noting that Farooq himself had invited him into the party and was well aware of his background. He reaffirmed that his resignation will come, but only after accountability is addressed.
