Veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday announced the name of his new party nearly a month after his exit from the Congress. The new party would be called the ‘Democratic Azad Party’, he said at an event, stressing that the party would have “no age bar”. “Youth and veterans would co-exist in the party,” he underlined. Azad had ended his decades long association with the Congress on August 26.
“Around 1,500 names for my new party were sent to us, in Urdu, and Sanskrit. The mix of Hindi and Urdu is ‘Hindustani’. We wanted the name to be democratic, peaceful and independent,” Azad was quoted as saying by news agency.
“Our priority is to get the party registered. But since elections (in Jammu and Kashmir) can happen anytime, related developments would continue,” the former J&K chief minister said, without revealing too many details.
Azad had an acrimonious exit from the grand old party last month just before it started its mass contact programme- the Bharat Jodo Yatra – with an eye on the 2024 national elections. His party’s launch comes as his former party tackles a fresh infighting in Rajasthan, just weeks before the elections for its president’s post.
As a leader of ‘Group of 23’ or G-23 as it was commonly known, Azad was among the 23 senior leaders of the party who had sought restructuring of the Congress. Following his exit, a large number of leaders had quit the grand old party.
Last year, Amarinder Singh too had quit the Congress following multiple confrontations with Navjot Singh Sidhu. He has now joined the BJP.