Listen to this article:

Srinagar: The National Confrence (NC) on Friday alleged that attempts are being made to ruin party’s July 20 protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to push its demand to restore Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah claimed that the party is facing unexplained delays in securing official permission for the protest, suggesting that rival political parties had deliberately scheduled overlapping programmes at the same venue.

“We have been trying to get permission for the last four to five days. Others managed to get permission within 24 hours, but we are still waiting,” Abdullah told reporters on the sidelines of the unveiling of the Kashmir Marathon 2026 merchandise in Srinagar.

Without naming anyone directly, Abdullah alleged that “some people are trying to sabotage our programme. They changed their dates and overlapped them with ours”.

The protest has been scheduled on the opening day of Parliament’s Monsoon Session where the National Conference aims to amplify demands for Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, an assurance repeatedly made by the Union government before Parliament and the Supreme Court.

While raising concerns over the alleged attempts to derail the programme, Abdullah avoided elaborating on the party’s political strategy.

Despite the uncertainty over permission, the National Conference has launched an extensive outreach campaign to transform the July 20 protest into a more expansive constitutional movement rather than a purely party event by inviting 52 regional and national parties to attend the protest.

Regional political parties, civil society organisations, trade associations, religious leaders and public representatives from across the country have been invited –including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah wrote to several senior leaders of the INDIA bloc, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, M.K. Stalin, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Pawar, seeking their support for the........

© The Wire