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| Is Azad returning home? NC keeping fingers crossed | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 25: Finding UPA slipping out of power at the Centre, ex-Chief Minister and Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is making desperate efforts to make a comeback to the State politics.
The comeback has become talk of the town both in Jammu and Srinagar cities. Azad has begun taking keen interest in the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir Congress since the day Congress suffered defeated in the UP Assembly elections. Azad had remained, by and large, away from Kashmir affairs after his return to national politics in 2009.
Azad took everybody off guards when a few days back he blasted the State Government for ignoring the developmental projects taken into hand by him as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir between 2005 and 2008. National Conference, which is leading the Government in coalition with the Congress, is reading too much in Azad's frequent Kashmir visits and his statements.
"They (NC leadership) virtually feel to have been put on notice by Azad", said a keen observer. The recent public outcry by National Conference's loud mouthed leader Dr Mustafa Kamaal is viewed as the expression of the anger the NC leadership is reeling under. What could termed as the harshest use of words, Kamaal accused Azad of provoking people against his nephew Omar Abdullah's Government.
Kamaal continued with his campaign against Congress on Monday as well accusing Congress of not implementing the 1975-Accord that had been reached upon between Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. Kamaal raised the issue of accord during a press conference and sought its total implementation.
He, however, did not elaborate what besides re-instating Abdullah the accord was about. What is seen as another indicator of the changing scenario in Congress-NC relationship is the purported truce between Azad and his bête noire Saifuddin Soz, who leads the Congress in Jammu and Kashmir as its State president. Soz and Azad had been working on cross-purposes in the state to strengthen their interests and sway in the party.
However unlike, past there had been no adverse reaction Soz camp against Azad. The same has been true with Azad's, Kashmir face Abdul Gani Vakil. It has reliably been learnt that Azad's Kashmir activities has nod from Congress's national leadership. Sources say that after Rahul Gandhi's utter failure to lead the Congress into electoral success in the recently held Assembly elections in five States, the Congress is relying back on the coterie old guards like Pranab Mukerjee, A K Antony, Makhan Lal Fotedar, Ahmad Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Congress leadership is reported to be fed with the sense that the party's young face has failed to attract the people, and has decided to go with the expertise of the senior leaders ahead of general elections in 2014. Sources in the Congress said that the party is rethinking its strategy in all the States with Jammu and Kashmir being no exception. What has made the Congress more concerned about Kashmir is party's losing ground in Jammu, its only bastion in the State.
Congress sources said that reshuffle and inclusion of some more Ministers in the Cabinet was all the more necessary to sustain the control on ground. Information collected from various sources say that the Congress is seeking to get Cabinet berth for two or three Azad-loyalists including former Works Minister, GM Saroori.
Azad's rethinking to return to State politics stems from the Congress's losing face at national level. Besides severe drubbing in recent Assembly elections Congress was faced with stunning defeat in Municipal elections in Delhi and Mumbai. They say that Azad is not sure of Congress again making it to power at the Centre. "He wants to reserve place for himself before he is thrown out of business," comments an observer. |
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