Azad Unveiled His New Party with Creativity, Depth of Thoughts, and Peace

GG News Bureau

J&K, 26^th Sept. Former Rajya Sabha opposition leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is posing a threat to the Indian National Congress after quitting the grand old party on August 26. Azad was the first versed member of Congress to declare the formation of a new political party at the national level after his resignation.

His resignation caused turbulence in contemporary Indian politics, and this turbulence suggests great change is inevitable.

Immediately following Azad’s resignation, the Congress in Kashmir under Indian administration experienced a number of joint resignations. The former Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and several other office holders were among the more than 100 former ministers who defected from the Congress in support of Azad.

The block-level Congress committees, Block Development Council Chairpersons, District Development Council Councilors, Sarpanches, and numerous other public representatives all resigned in support of Azad in his home region of Chenab valley, which includes the districts of Doda, Kishtwar, and Ramban.

On the auspicious day of the first Navratri, the former senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Monday unveiled a three-color “secular” flag along with the name of his new party, the Democratic Azad Party.

Azad claimed that party officials and leaders gave him a list of more than 1,500 names, but he preferred a name that would be familiar to people of all ages, races, and religions.

“We received 1,500 names from all over the nation. Sanskrit and Urdu are both used. But this name was chosen because we wanted a Hindustani name that everyone could understand, according to Azad.

Along with democracy, peace, and an independent name, he declared, it ought to be free from ideology. After leaving the Congress, the opposition claimed that Azad was cooperating with the BJP.

“The party will not tolerate discrimination. Caste and religious influences won’t exist. Our party will include members of various faiths, Azad declared.

Azad explained that the three colors in the party’s flag stand for creativity, independence, and depth of thought in blue, and peace in white. The leader claimed that walls between the various communities in Jammu and Kashmir needed to be destroyed.

How the other parties are affected of Azad’s action

Jammu and Kashmir is just one of many Indian states where the Indian National Congress has suffered damage.

The Congress party has consistently lost local assembly elections in recent years. The Bharatiya Janata Party dominated the most recent two Lok Sabha elections. The Congress has tried to recover it numerous times without success.

According to the 2011 Census, Muslims make up 68.31% of the population in Jammu and Kashmir, while Hindus make up 28.44%. For all these years, Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the Congress, and Farooq Abdullah’s Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) have shared power in Jammu and Kashmir. The NC, PDP, and the Congress each received a portion of the Muslim vote. The majority of the BJP’s supporters are Hindus.

However, the BJP was elected to power for the first time after the 2014 assembly elections, even though it was only the junior partner in a coalition after winning 25 out of 87 seats and finishing as the second-largest party. The PDP was the only other major party, with 28 seats. Congress received 12 seats, compared to 15 seats for the JKNC. Ladakh was then a part of the previous state.

A hung assembly forced the BJP and PDP to form a post-election alliance, and the two parties eventually came together to form a government. That experiment, however, was unsuccessful, and as a result, the former state was transformed into a union territory in 2019 and is now governed by the President.

With the formation of Azad’s new party, there will now be four candidates vying for Muslim voters as opposed to the previous three. If all four parties contest the elections separately, this would harm the Congress and possibly help the BJP.

The interesting thing is that, despite the fact that these opposing political parties frequently accuse new parties in Jammu and Kashmir of being the BJP’s proxies, neither the People’s Democratic Party nor the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference have issued a statement condemning Ghulam Nabi Azad.

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He might be wishing to return to politics by becoming the next Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or he might decide to join the BJP, or he might start his own party and be content with being the BJP’s B-team.

Azad’s cynics claim that he has never won an election in J&K on his own and that his prominence is largely attributable to his close friendship with the Gandhi family and the various positions and posts that he has been given over the years.

“We have all heard what Narendra Modi said to Azad during his farewell speech in Parliament, as well as how Azad reacted to the compliments he received. Azad was completely taken aback. He received proper compensation for the role he played both before and after Article 370 was repealed. In 2022, he received the Padma Bhushan, a veteran Congressman who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.

Azad’s praise of Modi as a “return gift” in the form of Jammu may have something to do with his current position at the political fork in the road that he is placed at as a result of the dissenting stance he has adopted toward the Congress leadership. He might be securing his other political options.

What might lie in store for Azad now that he has established his own political organization? As soon as the BJP decides to reinstate J&K’s statehood and hold assembly elections under the new regime, he could emerge as a consensus candidate for the Chief Ministerial position.

The BJP also requires a taller leader in Kashmir who can serve as a political savior and broker following the repeal of Article 370.

Ghulam Nabi Azad’s bitter and resentful resignation from the Indian National Congress (INC) was expected for some time, but it will be interesting to see how Azad’s desertion move plays out on the political jigsaw puzzle of Jammu and Kashmir in the near future