Omar faces NC storm: Many MLAs upset over J&K cabinet rejig, Srinagar MP to quit

Omar Abdullah and Farukh Abdullah (File photo)

SRINAGAR: The government of chief minister Omar Abdullah is facing signs of discontent within the ruling National Conference (NC), with a number of legislators reportedly unhappy over the recent cabinet expansion and seeking greater democracy within the party and resignation of the whole cabinet.The discontent within the party has taken place at a time when the party MP from Srinagar Aga Ruhullah Mehdi is resigning from the party on November 3 leaving Srinagar parliamentary seat open. “I will resign from the National Conference and my Lok Sabha seat on November 3, 2026. The crown prince and his cabal treat J&K as an estate passed down through the family. They expect the people to vote, then know their place. They take us for fools who cannot tell a broken promise from a political necessity.

Ask them to honour their own manifesto, and they lecture us on how little we understand realpolitik,” Mehdi wrote on X.

“We demanded the restoration of Article 370, the release of prisoners and the protection of our rights. They sought power on those promises, then treated us as fools for expecting them to deliver. We refuse to lend our name to this humiliation. There is no fixing this rot from within. The seat was won on a promise to the people,” Mehdi added.

Mehdi said he would surrender the seat rather than become an accomplice to the betrayal of that promise.Mehdi would address the people on November 3, the death anniversary of his father, Aga Syed Mehdi, at Behisht-e-Zehra Park in Budgam. His father was a Congress leader and prominent Shiite cleric who was assassinated in a terrorist attack on November 3, 2000.Ruhullah Mehdi is an alumnus of Tyndale Biscoe School and holds a bachelor's degree in arts from the University of Kashmir.

His political career began in 2002, when he contested and won his first Assembly election from Budgam. He retained the seat in 2008 and 2014. In 2009, he was inducted into the state Cabinet, becoming the youngest Cabinet minister. In 2015, Mehdi was nominated as the chief Spokesperson of the National Conference, the position he held for several years.

However, after abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, he distanced himself from the party’s stand of maintaining silence over the situation in Jammu and Kashmir after August 5.

He would urge the party to take a stand on Article 370 rather than urging the centre to restore statehood which he describes as a scaled down position.In August this year the NC president Dr Abdullah said Mehdi would not have won the parliamentary elections without the NC support. He said that if Mehdi believed Article 370 could be restored, he should fight for it, as no one had stopped him from pursuing the cause. Dr Abdullah had said the NC had not prevented Mehdi from pushing for the restoration of Article 370.

Dr Abdullah had said Mehdi should resign and contest elections on his own.

In response Mehdi had said that Dr Abdullah has for the first time asked anything from him and he will not disappoint him.

MLAs meeting

Meanwhile, according to the sources, over a dozen party legislators met Friday evening at the residence of Qaiser Jamshaid Lone, who represents the Lolab constituency, with several others joining the meeting online. They decided to seek resignation of the entire council of ministers and demand that a new cabinet be formed through consensus, based on merit and in keeping with democratic principles, sources said.

They also decided to seek the resignation of the chief minister’s advisor Nasir Ahmad Wani.In a related development, NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah removed Mubarak Gul as the party’s general secretary. Gul was among the MLAs who attended the meeting at Lone’s residence. After the cabinet expansion on Tuesday, Dr Abdullah had elevated Gul, who wanted cabinet induction for himself, to the post of general secretary.Omar Abdullah and Dr. Farooq Abdullah are in New Delhi.Dismissing reports of widespread discontent within the party and rebellion, NC spokesperson Ifra Jan questioned the claim that 20 MLAs attended the meeting at Lone’s residence. “They are saying 20 MLAs held this particular meeting. Where is this figure of 20 coming from? Is there a photograph or a list of names? Somebody anonymously claims 20 and everyone else repeats it without any investigative corroboration,” she said.“After the cabinet expansion, I think one or two MLAs openly expressed their displeasure and that was there for everyone to see. Isn’t that normal? Doesn’t this happen in all political parties? Some MLAs are happy while others are unhappy. This is common practice across the country,” she said.“Ever since Omar Sahib (Omar Abdullah) took oath, the leader of the opposition BJP's Sunil Sharma, has been claiming that the government will fall next week.

Unfortunately, nobody is asking why. Every disagreement is being viewed through the prism of “government will fall rumours” without any evidence. We consider any claim of large-scale discontent within the party as a rumour,” she added. Sunil Sharma said it seems Omar Abdullah government has only eight MLAs with it and those eight are cabinet Ministers.Nazir Gurezi, who was part of the meeting, told the TOI that Lone had invited all MLAs and “large number of MLAs were at his residence.

We just had food there”.On Tuesday morning Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly inducted ministers, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Shamima Firdous, Mir Saifullah and Altaf Ahmad Kaloo at Lok Bhawan in Srinagar taking the number to eight with Omar including nine. Omar dropped Satish Sharma, who was Minister for food, consumer affairs, transport science, IT, youth affairs, sports, and training.Omar was sworn in as chief minister on October 16, 2024, along with five ministers. Under the prescribed norms, the council of Ministers cannot exceed 10% of the total strength of the legislative assembly. With 90 members, the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly can have a maximum of nine ministers, including the chief minister. Three cabinet berths had remained vacant for nearly two years as the party struggled to decide whom to induct.

Soon after the expansion on Tuesday, NC MLA Abdul Majeed Larmi broke down. “I deserved a place in the cabinet. I felt very sad not to be part of the cabinet. I was deserving of it (cabinet seat). Till the last moment, I was expecting to be part of the cabinet,” Larmi said. “I am a law graduate, while the MLA chosen has not even passed matriculation,” he had said.Mubarak Gul’s supporters lodged a protest at the party headquarters.In the 90-member Assembly, the NC has 41 MLAs and is backed by six independent legislators, while the Congress, with six MLAs, extends support to the government from outside.