Ghulam Azad likely to lead Congress in Jammu & Kashmir Assembly polls

With Congress high command keeping its decision reserved vis-a-vis appointing of new president of Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC), veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is emerging as a consensus candidate to lead the party in the ensuing Assembly polls.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) leadership, including general secretary KC Venugopal, senior leaders Ambika Soni and Azad, who held two-day consultation sessions with J&K leaders, reserved its decision to announce the new JKPCC president.

Venugopal, who was representing party president Sonia Gandhi in the meeting, stressed the need to put up a united face in the faction-ridden Congress in J&K. He said if the party really wants to perform well in the forthcoming Assembly elections, then all the leaders setting aside their differences, if any, must put up a united face and contest elections with full strength.

On July 6, outgoing JKPCC president, Ghulam Ahmad Mir had resigned from the post after over seven years. “In all likelihood Azad loyalist Waqar Rasool or Raman Bhalla will be made new JKPCC president. However, as and when Assembly polls are held, it will be Azad who will lead the party,” a senior Congress leader, who attended the two-day meet, told DH.

“Despite Azad being part of Congress’s G-23 group of ‘dissenters’, his pivotal role during the two-day meet has put it beyond any doubt that the party leadership has made up its mind to place its safe bets in J&K yet again on him,” he said and added the party will contest the ensing Assembly polls under his leadership.

Azad, a shrewd politician is being seen as the best bet by the party high command. Earlier this year, the septuagenarian politician held political rallies across Jammu and Kashmir which evoked huge response from people.

In his addresses he called for immediate restoration of J&K’s statehood and holding of Assembly polls, which is something which even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have promised several times in the last more than two-years.

During the two-day meet, Azad, in his brief address, assured the party cadre to gear up activities from July 20 onwards and said he will cover every nook and corner of the UT. On whether the Congress would contest Assembly polls in J&K on its own or in alliance; he said the party would decide on it later.