Srinagar: The rift between the National Conference (NC) and its Srinagar Lok Sabha MP, Syed Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, has grown over the years to the point where he has expressed his choice to quit the party next month. The three-time legislator in the state assembly and current MP’s disagreements with his party began with his resignation as the party’s chief spokesperson in 2020.Ruhullah highlighted the disparity between the NC’s promises made to the voters during campaigning for the first Union Territory (UT) elections in 2024. He sees it as “NC’s non-serious approach to fulfil those electoral promises” once the party returned to power with a full majority after decades.He was pushed further away from the party after NC president Farooq Abdullah challenged him to resign from the party and parliament last month. Abdullah asked him to seek a fresh mandate from the people. The Srinagar MP accepted the challenge and announced that he will resign on November 3, the 26th death anniversary of his father Aga Syed Mehdi.“Yes, I am resigning from the party and as Srinagar MP. I have a few commitments before formally submitting my resignation, including disbursing MPLADS funds. I will host MPs in Srinagar to fight for restoration of J&K’s constitutional rights,” Ruhullah said.Ruhullah, a renowned Shia cleric, has time and again accused the NC leadership of failing to fulfil its pre-election pledge to fight for Article 370 and political rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.This is not the first time that the senior NC leader and once a mouthpiece of the party has expressed disagreements on issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir.His first conflict with his own party goes back six years to 2020.What happened in 2020The first confrontation between the Srinagar MP and the NC leadership happened in July 2020, immediately after the region’s special status was scrapped and the full-fledged erstwhile state was divided into two UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. He, along with other political leaders were placed under detention by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government to subdue opposition against the Modi government’s decision.After his detention was over, Ruhullah resigned as the NC’s chief spokesperson, making it clear that he no longer wanted his statements to be treated as the official position of the party. “I have sent across my resignation from the post of Chief Spokesperson of @JKNC. From here on none of my statements should be considered as such,” Ruhullah had posted on X.Even before announcing his decision publicly, he had already removed the NC chief spokesperson designation from his social media profile. His disagreement was linked to the party’s political messaging on Jammu and Kashmir’s future, particularly the emphasis on restoration of statehood at a time when Ruhullah believed the central demand should remain restoration of the special status removed on August 5, 2019. Ruhullah had tweeted, “Restoration of statehood should be the least of the demands. It should be the last demand. Our main demand should be restoration of special status.”Despite stepping down from his official party position as spokesperson to protect his ideological stance, he clarified at the time that resigning from a post did not mean abandoning the party.Over the years, the same difference became the basic foundation of his disagreements with his party.“His resignation from the position of chief spokesperson was not a major confrontation. There was no major disagreement between him and the party at that time. It was seen as a normal move, but it wasn’t,” said a senior NC leader who wished not to be named.Ruhullah stood firm, saying that statehood was not an acceptable substitute for the eroded constitutional position in 2019. The difference was not merely semantic. It represented two different approaches by the same party leaders to post-2019 politics. The difference lay in whether the NC should focus on recovering the powers of a state or continue to make restoration of special status its principal political objective.A reconciliation, but not a change in politicsFor a while, the differences appeared to recede between the senior NC leader and his party.In 2024, the NC chose Ruhullah as its candidate from Srinagar Lok Sabha seat. He won the seat comfortably and emerged as one of the party’s most prominent parliamentary voices. He also became the star campaigner of the party during the 2024 assembly polls.His return to the electoral frontline, however, did not mean that all his disputes with the party were resolved. Keeping all the differences aside, Ruhullah campaigned for his colleagues in every direction, which he believes helped them to secure their seats.The party’s manifesto assured the restoration of Article 370 and statehood and efforts to defend Jammu and Kashmir’s political and constitutional rights. These were the demands which Ruhullah had expressed to his party even before the party’s manifesto.After the NC returned to power under the UT’s first chief minister, Omar Abdullah, Ruhullah increasingly began arguing that the party had received a mandate on precisely these issues. Even during party meetings, they confronted each other on the same issues.Even political analysts believe that the NC’s 2024 larger electoral mandate in decades was on promises that included the restoration of statehood and Article 370.“People voted for NC on account of its promise relating to restoration of autonomy & statehood. People are disillusioned because it failed to pursue these demands,” political analyst Dr Sheikh Showkat told The Wire.Ruhullah said that NC had campaigned on a political programme that went beyond administration, but once in government, he believed NC’s focus had shifted towards governance within the existing UT framework.The reservation fightThe disagreement moved from ideology to governance in December 2024, when Ruhullah joined the students protesting against Jammu and Kashmir’s reservation policy outside the CM’s residence.His decision to stand with protesters against a policy of his own party’s government was a major turning point for his rising stature among the people.The incident exposed a new fault line that was believed to be in the healing process after a show of unity in the 2024 elections. Ruhullah increasingly saw his role as holding his own government accountable, while sections of the party saw his public interventions as undermining a government led by its own vice-president.The dispute became particularly striking because Ruhullah was not positioning himself as an opposition politician. He was still an NC MP challenging an NC government.“That (reservation protest) became the major escalation between the party and Ruhullah, and after that incident, even people he had campaigned for avoided speaking about him inside the party office. He gave an open call to all the leaders to protest against his party’s CM. Even opposition politicians joined the protest, which made things worse,” said a senior NC leader.The Wire contacted several NC leaders for their views on the issue, but they all preferred to remain tight-lipped. This shows the sensitivity of the issue and unofficial guidelines on it. “I will not be speaking on this particular issue,” said a senior NC leader who often speaks to the media on normal issues. “I don’t think anyone in the party will speak on the issue,” he confirmed.“Maybe the party high command is using back channels to settle the dispute between him (Ruhullah) and the party. That’s why leaders don’t want to speak about the issue publicly,” said a senior party leader when asked why NC leaders were unwilling to speak.The working committee confrontationThe differences became even more open at an NC Working Committee meeting in May 2025.“The party was considering all his suggestions, but through the proper channels and step by step. He seemed to be in a hurry and wanted the party to act on all the issues at once,” a senior NC said.According to reports, Ruhullah questioned the party’s direction and objected to what he saw as a departure from its ideological commitments and promises made in the election manifesto. The NC subsequently denied reports that he had walked out of the meeting after a confrontation with Omar Abdullah, describing the meeting as “healthy and respectful”.The episode nevertheless demonstrated how deep the differences had become.Apart from the political promises made by the party, he questioned whether the party was doing enough on Article 370, autonomy, statehood and the issue of political prisoners.From internal dispute to separationThrough 2025, Ruhullah continued to make political interventions independently of the party leadership.In one of his posts on X, he asked: “What will it take for those in government to understand the agony and hopelessness that our aspiring youths are facing?”The language increasingly reflected a politician positioning himself as an advocate for people he believed were not being heard by the government.That approach also helped give Ruhullah a political identity beyond the traditional NC structure.For years, Kashmir’s electoral politics had broadly been divided between mainstream parties such as the NC and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and separatist politics represented by the Hurriyat and other parties. After the constitutional changes of 2019 and the subsequent weakening of the separatist political space, a gap emerged.According to political analysts, Ruhullah’s politics increasingly occupied part of that space: firmly within electoral politics, but sharply critical of the post-2019 political decision.“That made him, for some sections of younger Kashmiris, a face of a new era of politics – one that sought to combine electoral legitimacy with a more confrontational political vocabulary on Kashmir’s constitutional status,” said Danish, a political researcher in Delhi.Article 370 becomes the defining issueBy late 2025 and into 2026, the disagreement had become fundamentally ideological between Ruhullah and NC. Analysts believe that his course of action will define his political success.The NC’s Working Committee reaffirmed its commitment to the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in November 2025, even as the party and Ruhullah remained at odds over the pace and manner in which that demand should be pursued.“Ruhullah, unlike its other MPs, remained vocal not only on the issues about J&K but also on problems faced by minorities elsewhere in India. His resignation from the party on this issue is an indicator of his commitment,” political analyst Showkat said.Farooq’s challenge and Ruhullah’s decisionThe dispute finally reached its breaking point when Farooq Abdullah publicly challenged Ruhullah to resign if he disagreed with the party’s political line.Ruhullah accepted the challenge. He said he would resign from the Lok Sabha and the NC, arguing that the party leadership had to first answer questions about the commitments it had made to voters. His decision turns a long-running internal disagreement into an open political separation.“If his future course of action matches his statements, he can improve upon his present stature. Whereas any misadventure can spoil his political career,” Showkat said.“He will not make a bigger difference even if he leaves the party. This party has a history and a strong cadre that is difficult to defeat,” said a senior NC leader.