A series of recent public meetings by senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in Jammu and Kashmir has fuelled speculation about the next step of the former Union Minister amid indications of assembly elections to be held in the Union Territory next year.
Though Azad, the former Rajya Sabha member of parliament (MP), has clarified that he has no plans to launch another party, his political moves in his home state have generated a lot of curiosity, more so because of his at-odds relationship with the Congress since he was part of the dissident ‘G-23’ group in 2020.
What added to the speculation was a recent development in which at least 20 Congress leaders from the Union Territory, considered close to him, resigned from the party after openly rebelling against the State Congress President Ghulam Ahmad Mir.
“No one can say what will happen next in politics like no one knows what happens after death. But I have no intention to form a party,”
Azad, the former chief minister of the erstwhile state said the rallies he was addressing were meant to revive political activities that had stopped after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Jammu and Kashmir has been under the Centre’s rule since 2018. There are reports that elections will be held in the Union Territory as soon as the ongoing delimitation exercise is over.
Azad, like other politicians in J&K, has started away from politics since 2018 when the People’s Democratic Party withdrew support to his government. He was elected to Rajya Sabha from J&K in 2009 and 2015. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from the Udhampur seat. After his Rajya Sabha term was over, Azad had indicated that he will retire from public life.
Azad was the only former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, who were not detained in the run-up to abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. The other former chief ministers, including Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti were detained.