'Wada kursi se bada hai': Srinagar MP to quit NC, targets J&K CM Omar over ideology

Mehdi has announced that he will formally resign from his position as a National Conference member of Parliament. He says the decision is final and that he will not return to the party. His announcement is framed as a matter of principles rather than personal ambition.

He plans to make the resignation public at a rally in Budgam on November 3. That date has personal significance because it is the death anniversary of his father, Aga Syed Mehdi, a prominent Shia cleric and Congress leader who was assassinated in 2000.

The resignation would distance Mehdi from the organisation whose ticket, name and symbol helped him contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election. He says he is now reaching out to journalists, lawyers, doctors and teachers to build a political alternative based on conviction and without the baggage of established parties.

Mehdi says he joined the National Conference because it stood for autonomy and the rights of Jammu and Kashmir’s people. After Article 370 was abrogated, he argues, the remaining autonomy was removed. He believes the NC then failed to honour its 2024 election promise to challenge that changed arrangement.

His criticism focuses on Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the party’s conduct in government, the Assembly and other constitutional institutions. Mehdi says these institutions helped normalise the post-abrogation system. He also accuses the party of adopting language that the BJP wanted people across India to use after Article 370 was removed.

Mehdi says the NC diluted its positions on Article 370, the Waqf Amendment Act, Muslim issues and reservations. He describes the party as moving toward the BJP “to the point of submission.” Farooq Abdullah’s comments that Mehdi could leave also convinced him the party no longer shared his position.

The National Conference, or NC, is the political organisation Mehdi joined 24 years ago and represented in Parliament. In the article, it is presented as a traditional political force in Jammu and Kashmir, historically associated with autonomy and the rights of the region’s people.

Omar Abdullah is identified as Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister. Mehdi criticises his government, saying it has normalised the post-abrogation arrangement through the government, Assembly and other constitutional institutions. Mehdi also says Omar’s positions have moved closer to the BJP.

Farooq Abdullah is identified as the NC president and a senior party leader. Mehdi says Farooq told him he was free to leave if he believed Article 370 could be restored. Mehdi interpreted that statement as evidence that the leadership did not share his belief or wanted him gone because he challenged its approach.

Mehdi presents his victory as much larger than the National Conference’s normal electoral performance in Srinagar. He says he received nearly 3.80 lakh votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, making the result a major personal mandate.

His comparison is striking: Mehdi says the NC never crossed 1.5 lakh votes in the constituency during the previous 30 to 40 years. He therefore rejects the claim that the party alone created his victory. He says much of his support came from people in South Kashmir who were not connected with the NC.

That support became possible after the 2023 delimitation exercise added parts of Pulwama and Shopian in South Kashmir to the Srinagar constituency. Mehdi still acknowledges that he contested on the NC ticket and used its name and symbol. For that reason, he says resigning is necessary to separate himself from the organisation.

Article 370 was a provision of India’s Constitution that gave Jammu and Kashmir a special constitutional position and allowed significant autonomy in certain matters. This explanation uses established constitutional knowledge; the article itself mainly discusses the provision through Mehdi’s political argument.

In 2019, the Union government abrogated Article 370. The change ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional arrangement and altered how the region was governed within India. Mehdi describes the result as the removal of whatever remnants of autonomy remained after the abrogation.

The political dispute in the article concerns what followed. Mehdi says the NC won the 2024 Assembly election on a promise to challenge the post-abrogation status quo, but then failed to do so. He accuses the government and constitutional institutions of normalising the new arrangement, while Farooq Abdullah’s comments raised questions about whether restoration was considered constitutionally possible.

Mehdi says resigning is necessary because he won the Srinagar seat on the NC ticket and used the party’s name and symbol. His departure would therefore separate a high-profile elected MP from the organisation. The article does not state whether he would retain, vacate or otherwise resolve the parliamentary seat after leaving the party.

For the NC, the resignation would expose a public disagreement over Article 370, autonomy and the party’s relationship with the BJP. Mehdi argues that his nearly 3.80 lakh votes reflected support beyond the NC’s traditional base. That claim challenges the party’s ownership of his electoral mandate.

Mehdi is contacting journalists, lawyers, doctors and teachers to build a credible alternative. He wants people without political baggage who have conviction. The article does not establish whether this effort will become a party or how much support it will gain, but it shows Mehdi intends to continue politically outside the NC.

In a federal system, political autonomy means a region has constitutionally protected powers to govern some of its own affairs. It does not mean complete independence. Autonomy can cover lawmaking, administration or special institutions, depending on the constitution. This broader definition comes from established constitutional knowledge, not the article alone.

The article presents Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy as the central political dispute. Mehdi says Article 370 protected autonomy and that its 2019 abrogation removed the remaining protection. He questions why voters were promised restoration if Farooq Abdullah believed it could not be restored constitutionally.

The article does not specify which institution has authority to restore or change that status. In general, such authority belongs to the constitutionally prescribed national process, involving the Union’s constitutional institutions and, where required, Parliament or formal constitutional amendment procedures. A state government or political party cannot restore autonomy by itself. The exact legal route depends on the constitutional provision involved.