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| Azad is based in J&K as CM | | But he remains important in Cong. high command | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, AUG. 6
'Out of sight is out of mind". Thus goes the old saying. Quite surprisingly--and significantly,too--this does not apply to the present Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad. Even as two to three senior Congress 'players', all based in Delhi, were widely held responsible for ensuring Azad's transfer to his home State as the Chief Minister at the end of the three-year term of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed as the head of the PDP-led coaliton government in J&K, the influence and prestige of the transferred leader in the Congress high command could not be belittled.
Both Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and Congress supremo, Sonia Gandhi, seem satisfied with the "courage" demonstrated by Ghulam Nabi Azad, on more than one occasion, while taking on the militant organisations and their masters across the Indo-Pakistan border. Azad knows that by his call-a-spade-a-spade style he has incurred the displeasure of jihadi outfits and their supporters in Jammu and Kashmir. Yet, he seems determined to sell pro-India, pro-democracy, pro-secularism line in the troubled State. It is a different matter that his line has not many takers, particularly in the restive Muslim-majority Valley.
Kashmir-watchers in Delhi may differ with each other on some issues, but they seem united on one thing--that is, each one of them is of the opinion that Ghulam Nabi Azad's job has jut got tougher with India downing shutters on talks with Pakistan. Azad went to Srinagar last year, but everything about him suggested he was a reluctant Chief Minister.This was not the first time Azad had let his resistance to a transfer to Srinagar be made public. He was sent as Pradesh Congress Committee (PC) chief in 2001, his first official engagement with the State, but it was clear to everyone that this was a punishment posting.
Azad fell into a trap laid by his own colleagues in the party, and took charge more than three months after he was named to the job. 2002 saw the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. No one expected the kind of performance the Congress came up with. The Congress wanted to claim victory but did not have the numbers to form a government. And a government had to be formed fast. The opposition National Conference was catching any MLA on the street and offering him the chance to be Chief Minister with their support -- including Communist Party of India-Marxist, which had two MLAs in the Assembly.
It was none other than present Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, who was sent by Sonia Gandhi to work out the terms of the partnership between the Congress and the PDP. Manmohan Singh was the one who hit upon the shared Chief Ministership formula. Azad bought time for two-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, the Congress came to power at the Centre and he was made Parliamentary Affairs Minister. This was an important job in a coalition government. He was even part of the top-most party forum, the Core Group. In fact, until A K Antony was inducted into the Core Group, Azad would faithfully fly into Delhi every Friday to attend the meeting -- until he was told politely that there was no need for him to exert himself.
Initially Azad took his job seriously. He would go the Secretariat at 7 am and stay there till midnight clearing files. Exactly what these files were no one knows because development is an unknown word in Jammu and Kashmir. But then in Kashmir no one talks about development. Politics is all about security. Inevitably it was security that came in the way -- the peace process stalled. It became clear that Pakistan would not accept any peace process until the "core issue" was not addressed.
Ghulam Nabi Azad began to feel seriously circumscribed in the politics of militancy and security. In Kashmir there is only two kinds of politics -- there is anti-India politics which is what the separatists of many hues practise, and there is anti-Delhi politics that the National Conference has developed into a fine art. But there are no takers in Kashmir for a pro-India, pro-New Delhi platform, which was Azad's stance. |
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