Srinagar: With assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir barely weeks away, speculation is rife that Ghulam Nabi Azad, who floated his own political outfit following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, is set to re-join the Congress party.
Azad’s party has, however, blamed “Congress leaders” for spreading the rumours, dubbing them as “totally baseless” and an “attempt to break our party”.
“Azad has requested all our party workers and leaders not to get [sic] into this trap,” a spokesperson of the Democratic Progressive Azad (DPA) Party said.
The development comes a day after Taj Mohi-ud-Din, one of Kashmir’s senior-most political figures, quit Azad’s DPA Party and re-joined the J&K Congress.
The latter has seen a major change at the top with Tariq Hamid Karra, a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who joined the Congress in 2016, appointed as chief of the J&K Pradesh Congress Committee, replacing Vikar Rasool.
According to reports, former Congress legislators from Kashmir including Abdul Majeed Wani, Gulzar Wani and Muhammad Amin Bhat are also likely to desert Azad’s DPA Party and re-join the Congress.
These leaders have not denied these reports, with sources telling The Wire that they were unhappy with the “political wilderness” they have found themselves in after joining the DPA Party.
Senior political analyst and former dean of the University of Kashmir, Noor Ahmad Baba, said that given the performance of Azad’s party in the Lok Sabha elections, it is unlikely to make a significant impact in J&K’s assembly election.
“Though Azad is often admired by some people for his chief ministership when the Congress was in an alliance with the PDP between 2002 and 2008 and when J&K saw some important developments, he has been unable to make any major impact, especially in Kashmir, after deserting the Congress,” said Baba.
He added that Azad’s party could “eat into the vote bank” of traditional parties in the Chenab valley, which comprises Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts.
After its founding in 2022, Azad’s party, which faced accusations of working as a “B-team” of the BJP, has struggled to take off, with its candidates in J&K losing their deposits in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election.
Unlike leaders of other parties, Azad himself did not contest the general election.
The accusations got an air of credence after Prime Minister Narendra Modi showered praises on the former Congress leader in the Rajya Sabha in 2021, months before the DPA Party came into existence, while asking other leaders to follow his example.
“Ghulam Nabi ji is not known to use harsh words and I believe everyone here must learn from him. I respect him for this. He congratulates us for the elections in Kashmir,” Modi said days before Azad’s retirement as leader of opposition in the upper house of parliament.
However, Azad, who is traditionally seen as a political stalwart representing J&K in New Delhi rather than a grassroots leader, has not been able to shun his image and expand the base of his new party. His departure from the Congress also fanned rumours that he could be working with the BJP behind the scenes.
Last year, more than 20 leaders from J&K, most of them from Azad’s party, joined the Congress in the presence of party chief Mallikarjun Kharge. They were unhappy over Azad’s remarks that “those opposing Article 370’s abrogation” were “ignorant of the situation on the ground”.
Article 370 granted special rights to J&K.
After spending more than four decades with the Congress, former J&K minister Mohiuddin, who represented the Uri assembly segment in the J&K legislature, resigned from the Congress’s basic membership in 2022 in support of Azad and joined his DPA Party.
Speaking with the media on Saturday, Mohi-ud-Din said it was time for his ‘ghar wapsi’ (homecoming) to the Congress. “My workers told me that I should [re-join] the Congress. I have listened to their advice and so I am doing ‘ghar wapsi’ very soon,” he said.
Over the last one year, the fortunes of the Congress party seem to have brightened in J&K, with former MP and J&K minister Chaudhary Lal Singh re-joining the party earlier this year ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Singh polled 4,46,703 votes in Udhampur constituency, a BJP stronghold, against 5,66,833 votes bagged by BJP leader and Union minister Jitendra Singh.
