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| 'Azad came to Jammu to strengthen CM's hands' | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 20: Union Health Minister and former J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad would visit Billawar and Jammu on April 18 and say this and that to strengthen the Congress party in the State. Azad would visit Jammu and discuss ways and means designed to end the mistrust between the Congress Ministers and party workers. He would visit Jammu and activate the party workers so that the party was able to restore the ground it had lost over the period owing to its alliance with the National Conference whose single-point agenda had been, and continues to be, to expand its own support-base at the cost of the Congress party. This was the impression the Azad's supporters had created on the eve of his much-hyped Jammu visit.
Azad did visit Billawar and Jammu but did exactly the opposite. Azad, who was virtually boycotted by the supporters of JKPCC president Prof. Saif-ud-Din Soz, including Ministers and JKPCC office-bearers, simply demoralized and disappointed all those Congress workers who were of the opinion that the Union Health Minister would talk tough, take on the National Conference leadership for its utter failure to take the Congress on board before taking any policy decision and say that he shared their view on rotational Chief Ministership.
Instead of taking on the National Conference leaders who had been denouncing the Congress party and New Delhi and accusing them of messing up things in Kashmir and "alienating" Kashmiri Muslims from India by devising and implementing "anti-Kashmir" policies, Azad commended the existing power-sharing arrangement and declared that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would complete full term of six years in office. Azad, unlike Soz and his supporters, was very assertive. In fact, what Azad said while commending the existing power-sharing formula was what the critics of the National Conference leaders, including Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his uncouth and provocative uncle Mustafa Kamaal, had never expected and what Azad said simply served to vindicate those in the Congress party in the State who were of the firm view that Azad and the National Conference leaders were on the same page as far as the power-sharing formula was concerned.
It is no wonder then that most of the Congress leaders and workers are feeling highly disgusted and have come to believe that the Congress would not be able to hold its own in the days to come and that it has no other alternative but to follow the diktats of the National Conference. Indeed, many in the Congress have come to believe that the Azad's Jammu visit has, instead of strengthening the Congress party in the State, has only strengthened the hands of the National Conference, which is being looked down upon not only by the people of Jammu and Ladakh but also by the people of Kashmir. Ask any committed Congress leader and worker about the political fall-out of the Azad's visit to Jammu, his/her answer would be: "Azad came to Jammu only to strengthen Omar Abdullah's hands; Azad came to Jammu only to express solidarity with those in his group who have been hankering for Ministerial berths and other jobs; Azad and his group once again demonstrated that they have nothing to do with the official of JKPCC". |
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