A month after he quit the Congress party, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced the name of his party as the ‘Democratic Azad Party’. He addressed a press conference and said that his party received around 1,500 suggestions in Urdu as well as Sanskrit.
“The names for my new party were sent to us, in Urdu, and Sanskrit. The mix of Hindi & Urdu is Hindustani. We want the name to be democratic, peaceful, and independent,” Azad said. Unveiling the party flag, Azad said that the mustard colour indicates creativity and unity in diversity, white indicates peace and blue indicates freedom, open space, imagination and limits from the depths of the ocean to the heights of the sky.
In his first public meeting after quitting the Congress party, Azad had announced that his party will focus on the restoration of full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.
“I’ve not decided upon a name for my party yet. The people of J-K will decide the name and the flag for the party. I’ll give a Hindustani name to my party that everyone can understand… My party will focus on the restoration of full statehood, right to land, and employment to native domicile,” he had said.
Rahul Gandhi ‘non-serious’: Ghulam Nabi Azad
Slamming Congress, the organization he was associated with for almost 50 years, Azad had said that the party was made by its workers with their blood and not by computers and Twitter. Alleging that his former party colleagues were trying to ‘defame’ him, Azad had alleged that people from Congress now go to jail in buses, call DGP or Commissioners, get their names written, and leave within an hour.
In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, Azad had targeted the party leadership, particularly Rahul Gandhi, and alleged that he was a “non-serious individual” and “immature”.
