Ahead of the National Conference’s scheduled statehood protest in Delhi on July 20, party rebel MP Syed Aga Ruhullah Mehdi has sharpened his attack on party Vice-President and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, alleging that the CM wants statehood restored only to get “power back.”

Mehdi, who represents Srinagar in the Lok Sabha, has for some time been criticising the National Conference for “deviating” from the issues it promised during the election campaign.

He said the Chief Minister had sought votes before the elections on the promise of protecting the dignity of the people. “Today, he doesn’t talk about respect. Instead, he is seeking restoration of statehood because the DGP doesn’t come to salute him,” Mehdi said.

Mehdi also accused those demanding statehood of acting as “agents of BJP”.

“Today, tell me who is an agent of BJP, who is trying to normalise BJP’s agenda,” he said.

Speaking at a separate event, the Srinagar MP asserted that he had not deviated from the party’s agenda.

“On the contrary, the party is deviating from the agenda,” he said.

Mehdi claimed it was part of BJP’s strategy to normalise the post-2019 status quo by focusing the discourse on statehood.

He said that before the Assembly election, he had campaigned for his colleagues on the promise of working to restore constitutional guarantees that were taken away in 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated.

“It was supposed to be a collective fight, but they left me alone, and they are going down a different path,” he said.

Mehdi added that the party should have challenged the status quo instead of normalising it.

“I think it would have been a victory if the principal constituent of the INDIA bloc had said that statehood is BJP’s agenda and that we must instead seek constitutional protections and guarantees for Jammu and Kashmir. Unfortunately, the National Conference, which has a mandate for this cause, is deviating from the agenda and not talking about it enough,” Mehdi said.