On Tuesday, Chief Spokesperson of the Jammu Kashmir National Conference, Ruhullah Mehdi took to Twitter stating that he had resigned as from his post. "From here on none of my statements should be considered as such," Mehdi wrote.
Following this, many on the social media platform had taken it upon themselves to link this with statements made by party Vice President Omar Abdullah. They cited an interview by Abdullah that was published earlier in the day to say that the former Chief Minister had "demanded statehood".
In 2019, the abrogation of Article 370, and the division of the northern state into two Union Territories had rocked the region. And while Abdullah is against the idea, he recently told Indian Express that he would not "engineer a protest".
"We made our agenda very clear in the immediate aftermath of August when we went to the Supreme Court and we said that these changes to J&K are unacceptable to us. That we will fight them with every democratic means at our disposal. We stand by that," he was quoted as saying by the party's official handle.
Speaking about whether he would seek the reinstatement of Article 370, Abdullah implied that there was no point to it.
"When people ask me why don’t you demand that 370 be restored? Arrey bhai kisse demand karun? Jinhone liya unhin se main umeed karun ki woh wapas de denge. Again then, that’s fooling people," he was quoted as saying.
Abdullah's insistence that he had not demanded statehood had sparked a Twitter exchange with one Twitter user. The latter had linked the resignation with his comment, and soon after Abdullah retorted by seeking to know "where in my piece or in the interview I’ve demanded statehood".
When the user shared screengrabs that discussed the topic, Abdullah clarified further.
"The impression is being created that only statehood is required & all other aspects of 5th Aug have been washed away. That’s lazy & misleading. I’m have never placed statehood restoration above the fight for J&K’s special status yet the 370 comments get wiped out," he said.
