Srinagar: Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi gave up both his seat and his party on Tuesday, and he did it in front of a crowd in Budgam rather than in a letter.
The Srinagar MP resigned from the Lok Sabha and from the National Conference, ending a public standoff with the party's leadership. He said he had sent his resignation from the House to Speaker Om Birla.
His target was specific. Mehdi accused the party leadership, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in particular, of betraying its promises to fight for the restoration of Jammu and Kashmir's special status. He accused the National Conference of taking a soft approach towards the BJP.
"I set myself free from NC, this is my azaadi," he said at the rally.
The setting was deliberate. The rally was held on the 26th death anniversary of his father, Aga Mehdi, who was killed in a terror attack in 2000. Mehdi handed his party resignation letter to Mohammad Ashraf Mattu, the father of teenager Tufail Mattu, whose death in 2010 set off widespread protests during Omar Abdullah's previous term as chief minister, and asked him to deliver it to NC president Farooq Abdullah.
The BJP, which has been the National Conference's sharpest critic in the Union Territory, said it had no involvement in the regional party's internal rift.
The resignation leaves Srinagar without an MP and the National Conference without one of its more vocal voices in Parliament, at a time when the party is in government in Jammu and Kashmir and managing a relationship with the Centre that its own workers find hard to defend.
For the Abdullahs, the problem is not just the lost seat. Tufail Mattu's name carries weight in Kashmir's recent political memory, and Mehdi chose the family that carries it to hand over his resignation.
What happens to the Srinagar seat is now a procedural question for the Election Commission. What happens to the National Conference's claim to speak for Kashmir's political demands is a harder one, and Mehdi has made sure it will be asked in public.