Ruhullah while interacting with reporters on the sidelines of a program said that he has differences with his party over this issue and this is why the party hates him.
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“I have differences with my party and they have differences with me. They hate me now. In the 2024 assembly elections we promised people that we will fight institutionally for restoration of Article 370 and constitutional guarantees. Unfortunately this government has stopped fighting for it,” said Ruhullah, who may seem unhappy with the party but was quick to reject the rumors of him floating a separate political party. The NC leaders, whose party enjoys the majority in the J&K assembly, said that the people of J&K didn’t vote for restoration of statehood.
“If they wanted just statehood they would have voted for the BJP. They wanted statehood with constitutional guarantees and this is why they voted for NC,” said Ruhullah. He further said that after the election his party moved away from their promise and said that they would now fight for statehood.
“It is wrong…but now the government has even stopped even fighting for statehood. We have stopped even asking for the Transaction for Business rules,” said Ruhullah. The Omar Abdullah led cabinet has approved the transaction of business rules for the Union Territory in 2025 and sent it to the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha for his approval. But they haven’t heard back from LG since. The absence of business rules, currently in dual control of Raj Bhavan and the chief minister’s office, made it difficult for the secretariat and other government offices to function as they lacked clarity on how to navigate and what to prioritise.
“They (NC) have fallen silent after getting certain protocols from Delhi for certain individuals…They are not fighting for statehood, business rules or for constitutional guarantees as we had promised before the elections. This is cheating with the mandate of people,” said Ruhullah.
On the recent amendment bill the BJP led central government brought in the parliament and failed to pass it, Ruhullah said the BJP had brought “a delimitation bill in the garb of women reservation bill to execute so-called delimitation, which they can use for gerrymandering.”
“They wanted to make minorities, mainly muslims electorally irrelevant and disempower them. They wanted to reduce muslim percentages in certain constituencies where they are over 40 percent and bring it down,” said Ruhullah. He drew a comparison with the recent delimitation exercise in J&K alleging that they redrew the boundaries of both parliamentary and assembly constituencies on “communal lines.”
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“This is what they did when they abrogated Article 370. MPs from Bihar, UP, MP and Gujarat who have nothing to do with Kashmir decided for/on behalf of Kashmir. I said the same will.happen with South India,” said Ruhullah. He further explained that the BJP led government wanted to increase seats in the parliament because of which Hindi heartland in north India will have more seats based on the population figures while South India, North East and other areas will suffer. “This Hindi heartland will have around 400 seats in the parliament which will shift the balance of power. Just four states would then decide for the rest of the country,” said Ruhullah. The NC leader said that the women’s reservation bill was not defeated.
“Let them (BJP) separate it from delimitation and bring the women’s reservation bill separately once again, despite its passing in 2023. We are ready to vote for it,” said Ruhullah.
