SRINAGAR: Srinagar Lok Sabha member Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has written to National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah, questioning the party’s current political position on Article 370 and statehood and defending his own stand on Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional rights.
In the letter dated August 28, Mehdi referred to Abdullah’s August 25 statement in which the NC president had said, “How long will you be a slave? You have to stand on your feet sometimes. When will you stand?”
Mehdi said the remarks resonated with the frustration felt by many in Jammu and Kashmir, but questioned why Abdullah objected when he raised “the very same questions”.
He said that while Abdullah had remarked, “You want 370, but you beg from Delhi,” the present demand was not even for Article 370 but for restoration of statehood.
“More importantly, by accepting statehood as the outer limit of our political horizon, we are legitimising and normalising the constitutional assault of August 2019,” Mehdi wrote, arguing that restoration of statehood could not substitute what was taken away.
Mehdi also questioned the NC’s 2024 election manifesto, which had promised restoration of Article 370, asking why the party included the promise when the BJP was already in power.
He asked whether the party had made promises it knew it could not fulfil or had invoked the issue of August 2019 for political mileage before forgetting those commitments after forming the government.
The Srinagar MP said he had no intention of becoming a party to what he described as a “lie” and alleged that he had become the target of a coordinated campaign of rebuke, including from the party president.
Defending his position, Mehdi said Article 370 was shorthand for the struggle to restore the “dignity, honour, constitutional guarantees and liberties” of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
He also referred to unemployment and lack of opportunities for young people, land and resource issues, pressure on religious rights, traditions and language, and environmental degradation.
Mehdi further questioned why Abdullah, who was chief minister when the erstwhile state Assembly passed the Autonomy Resolution, had now demanded his resignation over his position on constitutional guarantees.
“Why, then, has the mere mention of constitutional guarantees for Jammu-Kashmir now become so offensive that you felt compelled to publicly demand my resignation?” he asked.
He said his resignation would come, adding that it would have come even without Abdullah asking for it, but maintained that “before that must come accountability”.
Responding to Abdullah’s reported remarks asking who he was before joining the NC, Mehdi said he was “the inheritor of a long tradition of martyrdom” and the son of a martyr. He also reminded Abdullah that it was he who had personally invited him to join the party.
