Gulam Nabi Azad declines Congress' campaign panel chief position in J&K

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• Aug 17, 2022 | Poonam Nath

Former J&K unit chairman G A Mir resigned in the wake of an open revolt by Azad supporters in the Union Territory.

Digital Desk: Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday declined both positions, leaving the Congress red-faced. He had been named the campaign committee chairman and a member of the political affairs committee in the party's Jammu and Kashmir division.

According to a leader close to him, Azad felt humiliated and degraded.

"He is a member of the Sonia Gandhi (Congress president)-led political affairs committee. It is odd to have him participate in a similar group in the state of Utah. The leader stated that these choices are foolish.

This emergence comes days after former J&K unit chief G A Mir resigned in the wake of an open uprising by Azad supporters in the Union Territory. Vikar Rasool Wani, who is thought to be close to Azad, was named J&K unit president, and Raman Bhalla was named working president by the All India Congress Committee (AICC).

A senior congressman claimed that Azad's appointment as the leader of UT's campaign committee was similarly demeaning. "He served as a minister in four Prime Minister's administrations and five governments, and he held the office of Leader of the Opposition (in the Rajya Sabha) for seven years." He has served as the party's leader in every state and has been a member of the Congress Working Committee for the past 37 years, according to a senior Congress official. And now he has been appointed by AICC members to lead UT's campaign committee.

The list of the new UT officer-bearers was released on Tuesday by Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal.

The campaign committee's vice-chairman is senior party figure and Kashmir Valley representative Tariq Hameed Karra, while its convenor is Azad supporter G M Saroori.

The party's UT political affairs committee, which includes former Union minister Prof. Saifuddin Soz among its members, has appointed Karra as its head as well. Senior attorney M K Bhardwaj has been named the manifesto committee's vice-chairman, and Soz has been appointed as its chairman.

Significantly, Raman Bhalla and Vikar Rasool, two-term legislators from the Banihal and Gandhi Nagar Assembly districts, respectively, and former ministers, are both from the Jammu region. This is the first time in the history of the Congress in J&K that both its president and the working president are from Jammu. The action is anticipated to intensify infighting and widen the chasm between Jammu-based party leaders and those in the Valley.