Budgam, Nov 3 (HS): Srinagar Lok Sabha member Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi on Tuesday announced his resignation from the primary membership of the National Conference (NC) and from his parliamentary seat, fulfilling his pledge to quit on November 3. He said he was not launching a new party but a “movement”, for which he would look for honest, loyal, modest, faithful and free young people across Jammu and Kashmir.

Ruhullah made the announcement at a large gathering at Behisht-e-Zahra Park here, held on the death anniversary of his late father, Aga Syed Mehdi, and signed his resignation letter from the NC in front of the crowd. People had been arriving from different areas since morning, and the park was packed.

“Today I am signing my declaration of freedom,” he said. “Until 2:40 pm on November 3, 2026, I was with the National Conference. Now God has set me free from it.” Thanking those present, he said: “You have not come here to celebrate a post. There is no biryani here and no 500 rupees. Your coming is equal to a crore of people coming, because you have come to a place where power is being kicked away.”

Announcing the movement, he said: “This is not the announcement of an organisation or anything else. It is the announcement of a movement. If you want an organisation from me, give me loyal young people, modest young people, wise young people, faithful young people, free young people. I will go door to door looking for them.” He said he was ready to travel to the forests of Kupwara, the deserts of Kathua and the mountains of Poonch and Rajouri.

“Changing organisations will achieve nothing. We see the same kind of character in all of them,” he said. “From tomorrow I will start looking for honest people, so that the insensitive people sitting on the seats of power can be removed.” Appealing to the mothers of Jammu and Kashmir, he asked them to give him young people raised on honest earnings.

Describing himself as the son of a martyr, Ruhullah said he had no desire for the “throne”. “I am not fighting this battle to become chief minister. I don’t want to be chief minister. Give me honest young people, and we will take them to the offices of chief minister and ministers,” he said.

Turning his attack on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Ruhullah said the chair he occupies carries power but no honour. If Omar wanted to see what honour truly meant, he said, he should come to Behisht-e-Zahra Park. Addressing NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah, he said: “Tell your incompetent son to take out his British passport. It would be better for him to get citizenship there. You used the wrong man for your own interests. This is what you have always done to this nation.”

He said he hoped his people would never become so needy that they had to bow before any human being. “If we must bow, let it be only before the Almighty,” he said. “And may God give power to those who never bow for their own sake.” Sitting on a chair, or winning one, was not honour, he said, nor was crying like a child when it was denied. “No nation in the world treats humiliation as honour. This is the first party that offers arguments for dishonour,” he said.

Ruhullah alleged that after coming to power, Omar put the demands of power ahead of public issues. “We had asked Omar to scare the BJP and the RSS. Instead, the moment he came to power, Kashmiris started being pushed around and every Kashmiri was humiliated,” he said.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to Jammu and Kashmir after Omar took office, he said the leader of the government that took away the people’s constitutional rights was showered with praise. He said it was remarked that the sun had come out in the cold of Chillai Kalan, something that was seen in Kashmir “not as a blessing but as an ill omen”. He alleged that the government stayed silent where it should have asserted itself, while threatening ordinary people, students, mothers and sisters.

He also alleged that Omar met the prime minister and the home minister several times over the protocol of his political adviser, while forgetting every promise made to the youth. Ruhullah further claimed that when the manifesto came up in the Assembly, Omar said he had made a mistake in drawing it up, as if he were a prince, the throne his right and everyone else his slave with no right to ask questions.

Accusing the NC of using him for electoral gain, Ruhullah recalled his house arrest in 2019. “When the internet was restored, I began questioning my party,” he said. “Some were talking about restoring 4G, some about releases, some about holding elections. I realised the people’s view of this party, that it had made compromises in the past, was right. I demanded that the party stand against the situation, and said that if it did not, I would choose my own path.”

According to Ruhullah, the party then advised him to contest the parliamentary rather than the Assembly election and assured him that it agreed with his views. He said he was abroad at the time and was called back, and was first fielded from Baramulla and then from Srinagar. He claimed that after his 2024 Lok Sabha win, Omar messaged him to say the issue was not his own defeat but gratitude that Ruhullah had won, because “the honour of the National Conference and the Kashmiri nation is now in your hands”. He added that Omar kept praising his performance in Parliament and told him: “Because of you, the party has come back to life.”

Ruhullah said he was later used in the Assembly elections too. By his account, he asked the party to make a pledge to the people first, and a manifesto was then drawn up covering the restoration of Article 370, constitutional safeguards, the people’s dignity, the fight against the BJP, reservation and the release of young people. Votes were sought on that basis, he said.

He alleged that within a day of taking office in 2024, the chief minister changed his tone, “went down on his knees before the BJP” and said that what had been snatched could not be brought back. “The National Conference lied to me and used me,” he said. “Leaders told me that if the party broke this trust, they would all stand behind me. Two years have passed and nobody has stood behind me. Everyone is busy protecting their chairs, and they lecture me that I should stay with the party.”

“You used me. There was no deceit in my character,” he said. “The trust I earned in the parliamentary election, you used to win the Assembly election. You used the wrong man for a lie. I can neither be part of a lie nor let it stand. You lied to the people during the election.”

Referring to an interview in which Farooq Abdullah reportedly said Ruhullah was on the wrong path and advised him to follow the Quran, Ruhullah said Farooq should first have given the same advice to his own son. The Quran, he said, teaches believers not to despair or be overawed by any worldly power, and to stand firm against falsehood. “Which religion are you talking about? Which religion do you follow? Where did you get these principles?” he asked, adding that those who preach the Quran to others should first make sure its teachings are followed at home.

Recalling the NC’s history, he said Kashmiris had made sacrifices against autocratic rule and then won freedom in 1947, after which the party’s leadership acceded to India on the understanding that the people’s rights would be honoured and their dignity preserved. The NC emerged as the standard-bearer of that honour, he said, but the dignity and autonomy that were promised were steadily eroded from 1953 and “completely buried” in 2019. No nation, he said, can tolerate its own humiliation.

Addressing the BJP and the RSS, Ruhullah said: “Enough is enough. We have sent this message before: the self-respecting youth of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh will not trade their honour. However much force you use, the rights the Constitution has given us are our right. Whoever holds power in India, get used to the fact that the people of Jammu and Kashmir will talk to you on their own terms.” He said the people would remove the present rulers from the throne just as they had put them there, and would bring forward people who would not let honour be trampled.

Supporters raised slogans such as “Jammu Kashmir ki majboori hai, Ruhullah zaroori hai” and “Kashmir ka buland sitara, Aga Ruhullah” during his speech.

Ruhullah, who won the Srinagar seat on an NC ticket in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, had openly expressed dissatisfaction with the party leadership for several months. His differences centred on the restoration of Article 370, reservation, jobs for educated youth and political prisoners, among other issues.

He had announced in August that he would resign from both the party and the Lok Sabha on November 3, days after Farooq Abdullah challenged him to resign and go back to the people if he believed voters had backed him personally. His resignation marks a major break with a party he has been associated with for more than two decades.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Zahoor Hussain Bhat