The National Conference (NC) on Monday faced a revolt in Kargil after party president Farooq Abdullah asked supporters to vote for the Congress-INDIA bloc candidate for the Ladakh parliamentary seat.

Ladakh’s senior NC leader Qamar Ali Akhoon said the rank and file of the party on Monday tendered their resignation as they were facing "pressure" from the high command to support Congress candidate Tsering Namgyal.

The development came days after the Kargil Congress and NC units, supported by different political and religious parties, fielded NC’s Kargil president Haji Hanifa Jan as the joint Independent candidate for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat.

The seat went to the Congress after the INDIA partners struck a deal.

The decision of the Kargil leaders created tension between the NC and the Congress, prompting Farooq to publicly warn its Kargil leadership against supporting Jan in the election.

“NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah has directed the Kargil unit of the party to support the INDIA bloc candidate — T. Namgyal — in the Lok Sabha election for the Ladakh seat. He has told his colleagues that failure to follow this directive will be seen as a serious breach of party discipline,” the NC posted on X.

Within hours, Akhoon, who is the party's additional general secretary and the seniormost leader in Ladakh, told a media conference they were resigning en masse.

“We have sacrificed the party for our national issues,” Akhoon said, unwilling to accept the party directive.

“We are facing a lot of pressure from the party high command that we should support the official candidate of the Congress and INDIA bloc. There was a post on X (of Farooq) and I was also conveyed the same thing over the phone.

"I told my party high command that we have filed a joint candidate and all political parties have extended their support to our candidate. I told them we will never withdraw support to our joint candidate in the larger interest of the people of Ladakh,” Akhoon said.

Though this is seen as a setback for the NC, the Kargil leaders' decision seems to have bolstered the chances of the Kargil joint candidate winning the seat.