During an internal secret ballot vote, 746 out of 773 Awami Ittehad Party (AIP) delegates (nearly 96%) representing all 18 assembly segments of the North and Central Kashmir constituencies voted against his resignation proposal on Friday. Only 24 delegates supported his exit, while three chose the NOTA (None of the above) option.

Rashid, the founder and chief of the AIP, has been lodged in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail since August 2019 following his arrest by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in an alleged terror-funding case. Despite his long-term incarceration, he secured a historic victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, defeating National Conference’s Omar Abdullah by more than two lakh votes.

Accountability over exit

The push for resignation emerged during a brief window of freedom. Rashid was granted interim bail following the death of his 85-year-old father, Haji Khazir Mohammad Sheikh, at AIIMS, New Delhi. While visiting his ancestral village in Handwara for the mourning rituals, Rashid openly expressed his intention to step down. He confided to visiting political leaders and supporters that his inability to directly engage with his voter base or access his constituency from behind bars meant he could not do justice to his parliamentary role.

However, the party leadership adamantly refused to let him make a unilateral decision, insisting that the mandate belonged to the electorate. “Everything was done through a secret ballot with representatives arriving from across the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency,” said AIP general secretary Sheikh Ashiq. “It wasn’t a manufactured consensus—24 delegates actually voted for his resignation. This was handled in a transparent manner according to the genuine, uncoerced wishes of the party cadres.”

AIP chief spokesman Inam-ul-Nabi said that the exercise was a reflection of political accountability, not a crisis of faith. “The issue isn’t whether people have lost faith in him. The issue is whether he can do justice to that faith from jail,” Nabi said. “For Rashid, being an MP means accessibility and direct engagement. Because he can’t be among his constituents, he believed the people who gave him the mandate should decide his future under these restrictive circumstances,” he said.

While the internal vote does not legally bind the Lok Sabha Speaker’s office, it effectively halts Rashid’s plans to submit a formal resignation letter. The MP is scheduled to return to judicial custody on June 30 following a five-day interim bail granted for his father’s Chahlum (40th-day post-death rituals).

Breaking three-decade silence

The AIP refusal to let Rashid step down highlights a sharp departure from Baramulla’s traditional parliamentary representation. While political heavyweights like former Jammu and Kashmir Congress president Ghulam Rasool Kar, former Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone, and former deputy CM Muzaffar Hussain Baig have represented the seat in the past, local commentators said their terms largely passed without making waves in Parliament.

Srinagar-based columnist Haroon Ahmad pointed out that Baramulla has only captured sustained national prominence twice in the past thirty years: First under veteran leader Saif-ud-Din Soz, and now under Engineer Rashid.

Soz, a seven-time parliamentarian who famously brought down the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government by a single vote in April 1998, spoke out in defence of Rashid’s conscience-driven approach to politics. “It’s conscience that keeps people guided,” Soz said, drawing parallels to his own historic cross-voting. “When I voted against the Vajpayee government in 1998, despite immense pressure from my own party (the National Conference), I decided based on what my voters expected of me. In MP Rashid’s case, the people’s voice has real meaning.”