Ruhullah resigns as NC chief spokesman

ibune News Service

Srinagar, July 28

Former Cabinet minister Ruhullah Mehdi today submitted his resignation as the chief spokesman for the J&K National Conference.

The resignation of Mehdi came a day after NC vice-president Omar Abdullah stated that he would not contest elections till J&K remained a Union Territory. While Abdullah blamed the media for reading his statement as a “demand for statehood”, Mehdi said the party’s main demand should be restoration of J&K’s special status that was lost following the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5 last year.

Mehdi announced his resignation on Twitter and also shared his comments saying, “The 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.”

Soon after Mehdi’s announcement to resign came to the fore, Omar in a series of tweets said he had never demanded restoration of statehood to J&K. “I’ve simply said that having been CM of the state of J&K I will not fight an election to the Assembly of the UT of J&K. That’s it. No more, no less! That’s a far cry from saying I’m demanding statehood be restored. I have no problem being disagreed with for what I say or do but when you invent things and put words in my mouth to attack me then that’s more about you than about me. All you lazy journalists and commentators please show me where I’ve demanded statehood be restored,” Omar said in reference to his write-up in a national daily.

Omar said an impression was being created that the NC had changed its stand from demanding rollback of Article 370 revocation to restoration of statehood.