When Omar Abdullah became the first elected Chief Minister (CM) of the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), a restive region over which the Central government has extensive control, he realised that it would be a term filled with colossal challenges and confrontations. But it was not long before his elected administration could complete 100 days; he was put in a quandary, not by the Opposition, but from within his own party camp.
On January 9, in an interview, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Srinagar and senior leader of National Conference (NC) —the party that came to power in J&K after swaying the voters by its politics of recognition—said that Abdullah risked being seen as “Delhi’s representative in Kashmir” if he didn’t fight strongly for the rights that were snatched away from the people of J&K.
The interview came just weeks after Kashmir witnessed a rare political showdown when Ruhullah descended on the Gupkar Road in Srinagar, stood outside Abdullah’s residence and protested against his own government and the CM. The protests added weight to the mounting tensions sparked by controversial changes to the reservation rules introduced by the J&K Lieutenant Governor that sliced the open merit quota.
Through both, the protest and the interview, Ruhullah’s supposedly blunt stand fuelled a fresh barrage of criticism from his party compatriots, who accused him of being under “misconception” and aligning himself with “enemies”. For political observers, however, Ruhullah’s dissent against his own party may paradoxically be part of Abdullah’s broader strategy to balance keeping Delhi content while also sticking up for the larger anti-Delhi sentiment in the Kashmir Valley, which has reportedly been a fractious political landscape for over five years.
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