Srinagar MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi has criticised the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly’s statehood resolution, alleging that it diluted earlier resolutions and amounted to a betrayal of the mandate given to the Government by the people.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function, Ruhullah said the laws enacted by the BJP-led Union Government required reform, but alleged that the Jammu and Kashmir Government had failed to provide adequate space for wider engagement and dialogue on the issues.
He said the Assembly’s 2000 resolution and the one passed in 2024 were sufficient to articulate Jammu and Kashmir’s position, and questioned what follow-up action had been taken on those resolutions.
According to Ruhullah, the latest resolution should not have been introduced by moving away from the earlier resolutions, as he believed this weakened the political agenda on which the Government had sought the people’s mandate.
“In my opinion, this is a very big mistake. And I think it is a betrayal with this mandate,” he said.
On the Election Commission of India, Ruhullah said Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar should face an inquiry, including a judicial inquiry, over what he alleged were violations and manipulation of the electoral process, rather than merely resigning.
He alleged that Forms 6 and 7 had been misused and claimed that Muslims were targeted through deletions from electoral rolls. He also alleged that objections raised by other Election Commission officials concerning alleged violations of laws, norms and the Constitution had not been addressed.
Ruhullah claimed that changes to electoral rolls and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) had disenfranchised around 13 crore voters and called for a criminal inquiry into the matter.
“Resigning one of his people will not fix the damage,” he said, adding that elections already held should be revisited through an appropriate mechanism.
He also called for the SIR exercise to be halted until institutional corrections were made in the Election Commission.
Reacting to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s remarks on revisiting elections and dissolving state assemblies, Ruhullah said there was nothing wrong with the demand, arguing that elections should be revisited over what he described as failures of the Election Commission.
