After brief stint with Ghulam Azad’s DPAP, two J&K ex-ministers rejoin Congress
Taj Mohiuddin and Ghulam Mohammad Saroori rejoined the Congress at the party office in Srinagar. They were welcomed into the party fold by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and J&K in-charge Naseer Hussain, J&K Congress chief Tariq Karra and other senior leaders.
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Mohiuddin had quit the Congress party alongside Azad in August 2022. He earlier represented the Uri constituency in North Kashmir and served portfolios of Public Health Engineering and Irrigation and Flood Control in the J&K government.
Two former Jammu and Kashmir ministers, who had quit the Congress in 2022, rejoined the party on Friday, after a brief stint with Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP).
Taj Mohiuddin and Ghulam Mohammad Saroori rejoined the Congress at the party office in Srinagar. They were welcomed into the party fold by All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and J&K in-charge Naseer Hussain, J&K Congress chief Tariq Karra and other senior leaders.
Mohiuddin had quit the Congress party alongside Azad in August 2022. He earlier represented the Uri constituency in North Kashmir and served portfolios of Public Health Engineering and Irrigation and Flood Control in the J&K government.
In August 2024, Mohiuddin quit the DPAP and unsuccessfully contested the assembly polls last year as an Independent candidate.
Saroori also quit the Congress in August 2022 and joined Azad’s new political outfit.
He later quit the DPAP and unsuccessfully contested from the Inderwal assembly seat, that he earlier represented in the J&K assembly. He previously served as education minister in the J&K government.
Both leaders were known to be top aides of former J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and their departure is seen as a setback to the Azad’s DPAP.
However, both leaders remained unsuccessful and the DPAP itself drew a blank in the UT assembly elections held last year.
Mohiuddin spent four decades with the Congress. “I do not feel like I ever left,” he said, adding that his time away from the party was merely “a leave of absence”.
Meanwhile, Saroori termed his return as “home coming”.
Welcoming the two, state unit chief Karra said that they are senior party leaders “who have expressed their regrets at leaving the party to form another. I am of the firm belief that their return will strengthen the Congress on the ground”.
– With PTI inputs
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