Srinagar: Senior Shia Muslim leader and Srinagar-Budgam MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi on Tuesday announced his resignation from J&K’s ruling National Conference (NC) and his Parliamentary seat.
Addressing a large gathering of supporters at the Behisti Zehra Park in Budgam town, Mehdi launched a no-holds-barred attack on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and party President Dr Farooq Abdullah.
He started his speech with a gibe at Omar Abdullah, saying: “The chair you occupy today has power, but no respect; if you want to see respect, come to Budgam.”
He then dealt in detail with the circumstances that prompted him to fight the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
He said he refused to join the assembly elections because he had realised that whatever respect and self-reliance people had in J&K was snatched through a process started in 1953 and completed in 2019 when Article 370 was abrogated.
He claimed that the NC high command had literally begged him to fight the Lok Sabha elections.
“They begged me to fight the Lok Sabha elections. They said Parliament was the right forum to agitate the cause of the people. They told me they did not want to beg the BJP for statehood, and restoration of dignity of people through restoration of Article 370 was the main aim of the NC. They may deny it today, but I have recorded everything they said, and I will be turning it over in the public domain. I agreed to fight Lok Sabha elections. They first told me to fight from Baramulla, and then they developed second thoughts and told me to fight from Srinagar. I said: ‘Okay’,” Mehdi disclosed.
He said that when Omar Abdullah lost the Lok Sabha election from Baramulla, he told him that now the honour of the people and the party was solely in my hands. “I told him Allah would have a better plan for him, and his defeat could be the indicator of a bigger role for him in J&K.”
He said for Assembly elections, these people pulled down their cap before the people and begged for votes. “I always pray to Allah to make me beg only before Him and never before his creation. When they won the election, they said Kashmiris never had pyjamas in the past”, Ruhullah said.
He referred to the promises of Article 370, reservations, free LPG, and free electricity. “The reservations are so distributed that howsoever hard your children in open merit work, they would get only 30 per cent seats in training, government jobs etc. He (Omar) said during the election campaign that he would throw the smart electricity meters into the Jhelum River, and when he came to power, he hiked the tariff,” Mehdi said.
He challenged Dr Farooq Abdullah, saying: “Dr Sahib, you told me to read the Quran. Isn’t the Quran for you and your son as well? If you had read the Quran, you would know that Allah commands us not to bow our heads before the oppressors and not to lose hope.”
He quipped that people who lose the chair become unhappy, and here he is today, throwing away the chair and remaining happy.
He said that while Dr Abdullah’s son lacks courage, people will be brave and throw him out of power. “Nobody will come from Delhi to save you,” he warned Omar Abdullah.
Mehdi ended by saying that after 24 years of his association, he was ending his relationship with the NC and also relinquishing the Lok Sabha seat.He signed the papers resigning from the primary membership of the NC in front of the huge public gathering in Budgam.
(IANS)
