Politics

NC Blames BJP for Srinagar MP’s Resignation, Calls It ‘Operation Lotus’

By Naseer Ganai,Sanjay Khajuria

Srinagar – The governing National Conference (NC) in Jammu & Kashmir said on Wednesday that the resignation of its Srinagar Member of Parliament, Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, was orchestrated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under a plan it called ‘Operation Lotus’. At a news conference held at the NC headquarters in Srinagar, legislators Salam Sagar and Sajad Shaheen said Mehdi’s departure was the result of a “planned and calculated” strategy. "BJP has succeeded in getting Aga Sahib (Mehdi) out of NC. He has now joined a force that has tried two or three times over the past 80‑90 years to weaken us, but we managed to defeat those attempts earlier," Sagar said. He added that what was witnessed on Tuesday in Kashmir was similar to the ‘Operation Lotus’ carried out in Parliament to engineer defections and that with Mehdi’s help, BJP’s agenda had been fulfilled. The pair dismissed Mehdi’s claim that NC had abandoned its fight for the restoration of Jammu & Kashmir’s special status as an excuse and a ruse, saying that if he had not realised in 24 years that the party was not sincere in following its agenda, it reflected on him rather than the party. "We will never compromise on Articles 370 and 35A or the rights of the people of Jammu & Kashmir," Sagar added. J&K deputy chief minister Surinder Choudhary accused BJP of misleading the MP, referring to a reported remark by BJP national vice‑president Ram Madhav in Jammu on Tuesday that Mehdi had held a rally in Budgam after his resignation with the blessings of “our people”. Choudhary said, "Aga Sahib was a good and respectable person. BJP misled him, and Ram Madhav himself said yesterday that Aga Sahib was their man." In response, BJP spokesperson Sajjad Yousuf Shah said the party had nothing to do with NC’s internal affairs. He called ‘Operation Lotus’ a figment of NC’s imagination and insisted that Ram Madhav was in Jammu under a pre‑planned party programme and his visit had nothing to do with the crisis in the governing party.