Kashmir Impulse Desk
Srinagar, Oct 30
National Conference (NC) Member of Parliament Aga Syed Ruhullah will resign from the party and his Lok Sabha seat on November 3, his office said on Friday, escalating his prolonged confrontation with the NC leadership over Jammu and Kashmir’s constitutional status and other political issues.
In a statement posted on social media platform X, Ruhullah’s office said he would announce his decision at an event at Behisht-e-Zehra Park in Budgam, marking the death anniversary of his father, Aga Syed Mehdi, who was killed in a militant attack in 2000.
The statement cited a Quranic verse on honouring commitments and accused the NC leadership of failing to fulfil promises made during the 2024 elections.
It said Ruhullah would surrender his parliamentary seat rather than remain associated with what he described as the betrayal of the party’s commitments.
Ruhullah, who represents the Srinagar-Budgam parliamentary constituency, has repeatedly criticised the NC-led government over its approach to Article 370, statehood, political prisoners, and the region’s constitutional rights.
The NC’s 2024 Assembly election manifesto pledged to strive for the restoration of Article 370 and Article 35-A, statehood, and implementation of the 2000 Autonomy Resolution.
Ruhullah has argued that voters gave the party a mandate not only to form a government but also to pursue the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has placed greater emphasis on restoring statehood and improving governance within the existing constitutional framework.
The disagreement has increasingly become public over the past two years.
In August, Ruhullah wrote to NC President Farooq Abdullah, questioning whether the party’s position on Article 370 had changed and why its leadership was facing criticism for raising the issue.
The reservation policy also became a source of friction between the MP and his party.
In December 2024, Ruhullah joined students protesting outside the chief minister’s residence in Srinagar, demanding a review of the reservation framework.
The protests followed changes that extended reservation benefits to additional categories. Demonstrators argued that the changes had reduced the proportion of seats available to candidates under the open-merit category.
Ruhullah’s participation in the demonstration was significant because he had been elected to Parliament on the NC ticket only months earlier.
He subsequently continued to question the government’s handling of the issue, arguing that students’ concerns required a substantive response.
His differences with the party leadership also extended to political prisoners, autonomy and the implementation of the party’s electoral commitments.
At an NC Working Committee meeting in May 2025, Ruhullah reportedly questioned the party’s ideological direction and argued that its political agenda should not be reduced to routine administration.
Relations between him and Abdullah further deteriorated, with Ruhullah acknowledging that communication between the two had broken down.
The differences were also evident during the November 2025 Budgam Assembly by-election. Ruhullah declined to campaign for the NC candidate in the constituency, which he had represented for three consecutive terms between 2002 and 2014. The party subsequently lost the seat.
The immediate escalation followed remarks by Farooq Abdullah in August challenging Ruhullah to resign from Parliament and the party if he believed his political support was independent of the NC.
Ruhullah accepted the challenge and said the party leadership should be held accountable for what he described as a retreat from its commitments.
On October 28, he reiterated that his decision to resign remained unchanged.
His planned departure comes amid reported dissatisfaction among sections of the NC’s legislative wing following the recent expansion of the Jammu and Kashmir cabinet.
Ruhullah has indicated that he intends to seek a fresh public mandate and continue advocating for the restoration of the region’s constitutional rights.
However, his future political strategy remains unclear.
His resignation would present a challenge for the NC as it seeks to reconcile its longstanding political commitments with the demands of governing Jammu and Kashmir under the post-2019 constitutional arrangement.
