After Azad’s resignation, leaders’ exodus from J&K Congress continues

The exodus of leaders from the Jammu and Kashmir Congress continued, as its former unit president Peerzada Sayeed, along with his supporters, resigned from the grand old party to join Ghulam Nabi Azad’s new party.

A former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, the 73-year-old veteran politician ended his five-decade association with the Congress on Friday, calling the party “comprehensively destroyed”. In his resignation, Azad also lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for “demolishing” the party’s entire consultative mechanism.

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Azad, who was J&K chief minister from 2005-08, is set to hold a maiden rally, called ‘Better J&K’, in Jammu on September 4, where he is expected to launch a new party.

Sayeed, who was the cabinet minister in the J&K government from 2002-14, when the Congress was in power while first allying with the People’s Democratic Party first, and later the National Conference, is reportedly set to join Azad’s new party.

Dozens of prominent Congress leaders, including 15 former legislators, a former deputy chief minister, and seven former ministers, apart from a large number of Panchayati Raj Institution members, municipal corporators and grass-root level workers from across the union territory have already resigned from the Congress to join Azad.