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| Azad, Soz lobbies divide in factional tributes to Indira | | | ZAFAR CHOUDHARY
Jammu, Oct 31: The ‘Iron Lady’ as the Congress leader and former Prime Minister of India was popularly known, Indira would have never liked the idea of getting tributes in factions from her party leaders. Since Indira is not here to crack the whip on unbridled factionists, the Congress leaders divided in camps to pay factional tributes to her.
The division in the elite camp of Congress in Jammu and Kashmir is always too deep but leaders, particularly when in power, somehow try to keep away from getting branded. However, once or twice a year, there come such occasions when there are no other options but show up the ‘brand Azad’ and ‘brand Soz’. In October month there were two such occasions, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and death anniversary of Indira Gandhi when the top Congress leaders had to declare which camp they belonged to.
On Indira Gandhi’s death anniversary when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi shared dais at a mega function in Delhi, here in Jammu the State Congress President Saif-ud-Din Soz and Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand had two different functions to mark the day. While Works Minister Ghulam Mohammad Saroori preferred to be in Khour with the Deputy Chief Minister, the PCC President had only one Minister with him at the Abhinav Theater. Even as Soz had a battery of former Ministers and former Legislators with him, the majority of Congress Ministers in the present government stayed away from both the functions which represented the Soz and Azad brands.
The former Chief Minister and now Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and the State Congress President Saif-ud-Din Soz have themselves left very little to doubt their relation of abhor at extremes after they launched media diatribe against each other couple of months of back. For ‘insecurity of the job’ most of the Congress leaders, with exceptions like Abdul Ghani Vakil, tried their best to stay away from the fire. Vakil and Company (drawn from both camps) continued to play with fire.
The Congress watchers say that it usually pays to indulge in lobbies when out of job (when one is not a Minister or a legislator in Upper House). But when in job, care has to be taken to keep the Delhi connections smooth enough so that strings are not pulled before time. It, therefore, becomes very sensitive deciding which lobby one needs to align with. Saifuddin Soz is organizational chief in the state and therefore reports to 10 Janpath. Ghulam Nabi Azad is a Minister in Delhi and is therefore not entirely without influence. Given a chance an opportunity both have the capacity to influence key changes by their briefings to the powers that be.
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