Veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who resigned from all posts of the party , said that he will now float his own political party.
In conversation with Times Now Group Editor Navika Kumar, Azad said that will not join any existing political party.
Azad wrote a hard-hitting five-page note to party interim president Sonia Gandhi, detailing his grievances. In the letter, he described the party as “comprehensively destroyed” and said the Congress at the national level has conceded political space available to it to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and state-level space to regional parties.
Azad said he will begin new political innings by starting a new outfit in Kashmir.
He will now head to Kashmir where he will form his own party with the local leaders, Azad told the channel. However, he will not play a role personally in the leadership of that outfit, he said, adding that there will a local leader who will be made the chief of the Kashmir unit.
Azad further said that he also has an interest in national politics and he would talk to other national leaders later to take their views on how he wants to proceed in participation of national politics.
The Congress called Azad’s resignation “unfortunate” and termed the timing “awful”, saying it has come at a time when the party is engaged in combating the BJP on various issues.
Party leader Jairam Ramesh took a jibe at Azad, saying that his DNA has been “modi-fied”. Taking to Twitter, Ramesh said that a man who has been treated with the greatest respect has betrayed the party leadership by his vicious personal attacks, which reveals his true character.
Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit, who was part of the G23 leaders who had written to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in August 2020 for an organisational overhaul and reforms, expressed dismay and a “sense of betrayal” over Azad’s resignation.
Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of the G 23 leaders who were vocal about a leadership change in the Congress and not being dependent on the Gandhi family for every major decision of the party.
