Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is facing the most serious internal challenge of his tenure, after a large group of legislators from his own National Conference met in Srinagar on Friday and demanded a sweeping overhaul of his government and party.
At least 18 ruling party MLAs gathered in person on Friday evening at the residence of MLA Qaisar Jamshid Lone, near Srinagar airport, and six more joined by video conference to extend their support, according to reports of the meeting. That would put the dissident camp at 24 legislators, a majority of the National Conference's own 41 MLAs in the 90-member Assembly.
Another report counted about 19 legislators physically present at the meeting, a discrepancy that reflects how fluid and contested the numbers remain, but even the lower figure represents nearly half the party's legislature strength.
The meeting lasted several hours, with one account putting it at close to three hours and another at about four, and it ended with a signed resolution and an oath.
Those present resolved to fight for what they called internal democracy in the party, and they set out four major demands: the removal of the Chief Minister's advisor, Nasir Aslam Wani; the removal of Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary; the dropping of ministers who have completed two years in office; and a comprehensive restructuring of the Council of Ministers.
They also demanded a roadmap for implementing the party manifesto and greater empowerment of MLAs in the working of the government.
The legislators chose Gurez MLA Nazir Gurezi to head a committee that will submit a memorandum containing these demands to National Conference president Farooq Abdullah in the coming days. That choice is significant: it routes the challenge through the party's patriarch rather than presenting it as an open break with the Chief Minister, and it gives the leadership a formal document to respond to rather than a press statement to dismiss.
Those who attended insisted they were not rebels. One legislator who spoke after the meeting said the group wanted to meet the Chief Minister to convey its demands, was not against the party, but believed it could not be business as usual. Another said the MLAs had taken an oath to strengthen the party, wanted accountability, and did not want the party and government treated as the fiefdom of a few individuals.
A third said some senior MLAs broke down during the meeting while recounting how they had allegedly been treated by the party leadership and the Chief Minister's advisor, a detail that, if accurate, suggests grievances that go beyond ministerial berths.
The immediate trigger was the Cabinet reshuffle carried out on October 27, barely days before the meeting. Omar Abdullah inducted four new ministers from Kashmir, Ali Mohammad Sagar, Shameema Firdous, Mir Saifullah and Altaf Ahmad Kaloo, and dropped Jammu minister Satish Sharma. The reshuffle was expected to settle discontent by rewarding loyalists and broadening representation.
Instead, according to the dissidents, it deepened resentment, because the criteria for who was chosen and who was left out were never explained, and because several senior legislators who expected inclusion were passed over.
Two senior figures made the meeting politically significant. Former Assembly Speaker Mubarak Gul and Anantnag West MLA Abdul Majid Larmi both attended, having publicly expressed resentment over their exclusion from the Cabinet. Gul had been appointed to the key party post of general secretary after being left out of the ministry, a position he had not accepted, and reports said Farooq Abdullah subsequently removed him from that post after he attended the dissidents' meeting.
Meanwhile, Farooq Abdullah asked Ali Mohammad Sagar to continue as general secretary, a move that underlined how quickly the party leadership moved to reassert control over its organisation.
The grievances aired at the meeting went beyond the reshuffle itself. Legislators from the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu region were both represented, which matters because the party's internal tensions are often read through a regional lens. Jammu legislators particularly targeted Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary, while the Valley legislators focused on the Chief Minister's advisor.
The common target, however, was Nasir Aslam Wani, also known as Sogami, whom the legislators accused of misleading the leadership, interfering in organisational affairs and working against party interests. Some reports also named the party's provincial president for Kashmir, Shoukat Ahmad Mir, as a figure whose removal the legislators sought for the smooth functioning of the party, and one account added MP Shammi Oberoi to the list of aides whose influence was resented.
Not everyone at the meeting framed it in the same way. Gurezi himself, speaking afterwards, played down the gathering, saying the legislators had been invited by Lone for lunch and that it had nothing to do with the Cabinet reshuffle. That downplaying may reflect an effort to keep the door open for negotiation, or a desire to avoid being branded a rebel leader before the memorandum is submitted.
Either way, it sits uneasily with the signed resolution and the oath reported by other attendees, and the gap between the two accounts is itself a sign of a party managing a crisis in public.
The Chief Minister's response, so far, has been outreach rather than confrontation. Reports said Omar Abdullah directed ministers and senior leaders to meet the aggrieved legislators, and sent a close aide to meet legislators from the Pir Panjal region.
The legislators reportedly replied that if the Chief Minister was keen to address their grievances, he should visit them personally, a response that suggests they want direct engagement from the top rather than mediation by intermediaries.
The arithmetic of the Assembly makes the standoff consequential. The National Conference holds 41 seats and governs with the support of the Congress, which has six MLAs, along with smaller parties and Independents. If 24 NC legislators were to hold together as a bloc, they would represent a majority of the party's own legislature group, and their defection or sustained opposition would threaten the government's stability even if it did not immediately bring it down.
The anti-defection law makes a formal split difficult, since a breakaway group would need two-thirds of the legislature party to avoid disqualification, a threshold 24 does not meet. But a bloc of that size can still paralyse a government from within, block legislation, and force leadership changes without ever leaving the party.
The rebellion also comes at a moment of wider turbulence for the National Conference. Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, who has long had a strained relationship with the Abdullah family, has announced that he will resign from his parliamentary seat and party membership and chart his own course, with November 3 mentioned as the date for that step.
His departure, if it happens, would add a high-profile defection to the internal dissent, and would give the dissident MLAs a potential figurehead outside the Assembly, even though Ruhullah himself has not been linked to Friday's meeting.
For Omar Abdullah, who returned as Chief Minister after the National Conference's victory in the first Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370, the crisis tests a leadership style that critics within the party have long described as centralised.
The dissidents' language, about internal democracy, accountability, transparency in reshuffle criteria, and empowerment of MLAs, is the language of a party that feels decisions are taken by a small circle around the Chief Minister. Whether those complaints are justified is a matter of internal debate, but the fact that so many legislators were willing to sign a resolution and take an oath suggests they are widely shared.
The next steps are now relatively clear. The Gurezi-headed committee will submit its memorandum to Farooq Abdullah, and the party president's response will set the tone for what follows. If the leadership offers a credible roadmap on the manifesto, a restructuring of the Council of Ministers, or changes in the Chief Minister's advisory circle, the dissidents may be brought back into the fold.
If it dismisses the meeting as a lunch gathering and makes no concessions, the dissidents may escalate, and the November 3 date for Ruhullah's announced resignation will add pressure.
For the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the stakes are practical as well as political. A government consumed by internal dissent has less capacity to address the region's pressing issues, from employment and infrastructure to the restoration of statehood, which remains the National Conference's central promise. The dissidents say they want to strengthen the party and the government, not weaken them.
The coming days will show whether that claim survives contact with the leadership's response, and whether Omar Abdullah can turn a revolt into a renegotiation, or whether the party's internal divide hardens into something more permanent.
(Reporting based on NDTV and Daily Excelsior.)