Srinagar, April 15: With by-elections approaching in Budgam, Srinagar MP and senior National Conference (NC) leader Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has called a significant meeting of 27 party block presidents, constituency heads, and village-level leaders at his residence, Darul-Mustafa, Shariat Abad Budgam, on April 19.<\/p>\n
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While officially described as an election-preparedness meeting, the gathering comes at a time when Ruhullah is increasingly seen as isolated within his party.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media on Sunday, April 13, Ruhullah said, \u201cThere should be someone from Budgam who represents the people. I would suggest somebody local from Budgam itself to represent the constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His remarks come months after he joined protesting students in Srinagar outside the CM\u2019s Gupkar residence, opposing the revised reservation policy that reduced open merit seats to 30%. His participation in the protests created friction with the NC leadership.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfter the reservation protests, the communication between me and the party has become almost non-existent,\u201d Ruhullah said during a conversation on X Space, formerly known as Twitter Space.<\/p>\n
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Once a prominent ideological voice within NC, Ruhullah now finds himself sidelined. His open stance on issues such as statehood, Article 370, and the reservation policy has caused discomfort within the party.<\/p>\n
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Adding to the tension, Ruhullah was recently named in a land scam, which he dismissed as politically motivated. \u201cLet them probe the case at the highest level. This is nothing but a way to silence me. I won\u2019t be silenced by these things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Observers say that the April 19 meeting could either reaffirm his influence in Budgam\u2014or mark a turning point in his relationship with the NC.<\/p>\n
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The by-elections are being held in the Budgam constituency after Omar Abdullah vacated the seat and retained the Ganderbal seat last year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Srinagar, April 15: With by-elections approaching in Budgam, Srinagar MP and senior National Conference (NC) leader Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has called a significant meeting of 27 party block presidents, constituency heads, and village-level leaders at his residence, Darul-Mustafa, Shariat Abad Budgam, on April 19. While officially described as an election-preparedness meeting, the gathering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87717,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87714\/revisions\/87717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.khushalekashmir.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}