After Quitting Congress, Ghulam Nabi Azad Says ‘Will Float Own Party in J&K, Not Join BJP’
Senior politician Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit the Congress on Friday, said he will soon form his own party in Jammu and Kashmir. The 73-year-old former chief minister of the erstwhile state also stressed that he will not be joining the BJP. Azad, who is in Delhi, said he will be visiting the union territory to meet his supporters and people there as his new party’s first unit will be set up there.
“I will be visiting Jammu and Kashmir soon,” he told the media after sending his resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. “I will be setting up my outfit in Jammu and Kashmir soon. I will not be joining the BJP,” he said.
This move gains in significance as Jammu and Kashmir is due for elections later in the year. In his explosive resignation letter, the 73-year-old leader had hinted at his future move. Leaving the rebel G23 and J&K Congress leaderships in disarray, Azad exited the grand old party on his own terms after 52 years.
A few sentences towards the end of his resignation letter can be interpreted as his intentions to form a new political party with leaders of his own region. “Some of my other colleagues and I will now persevere to perpetuate the ideals for which we have dedicated our entire adult lives outside the fold of the Indian National Congress,” wrote the former J&K chief minister.
With a rich political experience backing him, from serving as J&K’s chief minister to serving as opposition leader in Rajya Sabha, Azad will prove to be a tough challenge to regional parties as well as the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir. As of now, however, he has no plans of launching a national party.
“I am in no hurry as of now to launch a national party but keeping in mind that elections are likely to be held in Jammu and Kashmir, I have decided to launch a unit there soon,” Azad told PTI.
Hours after Azad’s exit, eight senior Congress leaders, including three former ministers, resigned the party’s primary membership. According to sources, former ministers R S Chib, G M Saroori and Abdul Rashid; former MLAs Mohammad Amin Bhat, Gulzar Ahmad Wani and Choudhary Mohammad Akram; former MLC Naresh Gupta and party leader Salman Nizami have resigned in Azad’s support.
Chib, in fact, said he will follow Azad wherever he went and it had been quite difficult for the leader over the past few months as he was pushed to the wall and was left with no choice but to resign. “Keeping in view the turmoil that the state of J&K has witnessed over the past decades, the people require a decisive leader like Azad to guide them towards a better future. I feel that the Congress party has not been able to play the role that is expected of it,” Chib said in his resignation letter.
Recently designated J&K Congress president Vikar Rasool Wani — also seen as an Azad loyalist — and his predecessor GA Mir, who belonged to the rival camp, said they will work with double the resolve now to strengthen the party at the grassroots in the UT.
In his five-page resignation letter, Azad termed the party as comprehensively destroyed lashing out at Rahul Gandhi for “demolishing” its entire consultative mechanism. The Congress, dealing with the fallout of a series of high-profile exits, including that of Kapil Sibal and Ashwani Kumar, attempted to deflect the latest blow by alleging that Azad’s DNA had been “Modi-fied” and linking his resignation to the end of his Rajya Sabha tenure.
Asked about plans for his new party, Azad refused to divulge too many details. Refusing to be dragged into any discussion over his resignation, he said, “I have thought about this decision for long and there is no going back.”
His resignation from the Congress has created a political storm in J&K but many leaders across the political spectrum praised his contributions to the UT with the BJP hailing him as a “towering leader”.
As Jammu and Kashmir CM from November 2005 to July 2008, his leadership left an indelible mark. The government under him completed pending development projects in record time by introducing double-shift working, while some major landmarks developed during his tenure include the new assembly complex, new museum building, Hajj house and many educational institutions.
His focus to provide his native place with the best of facilities reflected during his time as the union health minister in UPA-2. He sanctioned five new medical colleges and two super-speciality hospitals for Jammu and Kashmir.
Many, including those in his own party, were speculating that Azad may just join the BJP. His association with Prime Minister Narendra Modi goes back a long way. Last year, Modi had given Azad a teary-eyed farewell during his time as the opposition leader in Rajya Sabha. Azad was also conferred the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian honour earlier this year.
