Congress Loyalist Ghulam Nabi Azad Resigns From All Positions, Quits Party
Senior Congress Leader Ghulam Nabi Azad announced his resignation from all positions including primary membership of the Party today.
A couple of days ago, Ghulam Azad resigned as a chairman of the Congress' campaign committee in Jammu and Kashmir. Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the most senior leaders of the Congress party. He started his political career in Indira Gandhi's era, even before Rajiv Gandhi entered politics. He served the party loyally for the past few decades. It is said that he has been sidelined ever since Rahul Gandhi's influence was growing in the party.
Ghulam Nabi Azad was the seventh chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 2005 to 2008 and was the Minister of Health and Family Welfare. He served as the Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha until February 2021. He served as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the government of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh until 27 October 2005, when he was appointed as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He also led the party successfully in the 2002 Assembly election in Jammu and Kashmir.
Here is the letter Ghulam Nabi Azad has written to Sonia Gandhi..
Hon’ble Congress President,
I joined the Indian National Congress in Jammu & Kashmir in mid 1970s when it was still a taboo to be associated with the party given its chequered history in the state from August 1953 onwards — the arrest of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah being the nadir of its political myopia.
Notwithstanding all this, inspired from my student days by the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal L.al Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose and other leading lights of our freedom struggle, and subsequently, at the personal insistence of Late Sh Sanjay Gandhi I agreed to shoulder the responsibility of the Presidentship of the Jammu & Kashmir Youth Congress in 1975-76. I was already serving the Indian National Congress as a Block General Secretary from 1973-1975 after completing my post-graduation from Kashmir University.
During the period from 1977 onwards as General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) led by Late Shri Sanjay Gandhi we went from jail to jail along with thousands of Youth Congress leaders and workers. My longest period in Tihar jail was from 20th December, 1978 to end of January 1979, for leading a protest rally against the arrest of Mrs. Indira Gandhi from Jama Masjid Delhi to Parliament House. We opposed the Janata Party dispensation and paved the way for the revival and rejuvenation of the party founded by the Late Mrs Indira Gandhi in the January of 1978. Within three years as a consequence of that heroic struggle the Indian National Congress stormed back into power in 1980.
After the tragic death of the youth icon, I took over as the National President of IYC in 1980. As President, I had the privilege of inducting your husband Late Shri Rajiv Gandhi into the Indian Youth Congress as a Member of the National Council on the first death anniversary of Late Shri Sanjay Gandhi on 23rd June 1981. Subsequently Late Shri Rajiv Gandhi took over the leadership of the IYC in a Special Session of IYC held in Bangalore on 29th and 30th December of that year (1981) again under my Presidentship.
I have had the honour of serving as a Union Minister in Late Smt. Indira Gandhi’s, Late Sh Rajiv Gandhi’s, Late Sh. PV Narasimha Rao’s and Dr Manmohan Singh’s government respectively from 1982 till 2014. I have also had the opportunity of serving as a General Secretary in the AICC with every President of the Indian National Congress since the mid-1980s.
I was a Member of the Congress Parliamentary Board headed by your late husband and then Congress President Sh. Rajiv Gandhi till his tragic assassination in May 1991 and later with Sh PV Narasimha Rao till the latter decided not to reconstitute the Congress Parliamentary Board in October 1992.
I have also been a Member of the Congress Working Committee continuously for nearly four decades both in an elected and a nominated capacity. I have been the AICC General Secretary in-charge of every state and Union Territory of the country at one point of time or the other over the last thirty-five years. I am happy to state that INC won 90% of the states that I was in charge from time to time.
I am recounting all these years of selfless service just to underscore my lifelong association with this great institution that I also served recently as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha for 7 years. I have spent every working moment of my adult life in the service of the Indian National Congress at the cost of my health and family while undoubtedly as the President of the Indian National Congress you played a sterling role in the formation of both the UPA-1 and UPA-2 government’s.
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