Ghulam Nabi Azad to form own party in J&K after quitting Congress
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New Delhi: Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit the Congress today with a scathing critique of the Gandhis, mainly Rahul Gandhi, is likely to launch a new party.
The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister have been quoted as saying he would like to launch his party on his home turf.
"I will go to Jammu and Kashmir. I will form my own party in the state, will check on the national possibility later," he was quoted as telling India Today.
He today also that he is not in touch with the BJP and won't join it.
Elections are due in Jammu and Kashmir later this year.
Sources close to Mr. Azad say he is keen on marking his presence in the region ahead of the Jammu and Kashmir election.
Azad, 73, quit the party days after he rejected a key post in the Jammu and Kashmir Congress, saying his recommendations for the organization had been ignored.
In a hard-hitting 5 page note to party interim president Sonia Gandhi, Azad claimed that a coterie runs the party while she was just a nominal head and all the major decisions were taken by "Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs".
Recounting his long association with the Congress and his close relationship with Indira Gandhi, Azad said the situation in the Congress party has reached a point of "no return." "The entire organizational election process is a farce and a sham. At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organization. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC have been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting in 24 Akbar Road," Azad wrote.
Hitting out at Rahul Gandhi, Azad wrote, "Since the 2019 elections the situation in the party has only worsened. After. Rahul Gandhi stepped down in a 'huff' and not before insulting all the senior Party functionaries who have given their lives to the party in a meeting of the extended Working Committee, you took over as interim President. A position that you have continue to hold even today for the past three years." Azad said that it was "worse still the 'remote control model' that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress." He continued the attack on Rahul Gandhi but praised Sonia Gandhi for playing "sterling" role as Congress President in both the UPA governments.
