Ghulam Nabi Azad’s next move: His own party

Late in the evening, PTI quoted Azad as confirming that he will float a new party with a J&K-centric unit to start with. “I am in no hurry as of now to launch a national party but keeping in mind that elections are likely to be held in Jammu and Kashmir, I have decided to launch a unit there soon,” Azad told PTI.

While the Congress put up a brave face, many leaders see a bigger crisis brewing. “We are perhaps not looking at a split. It could be death by a thousand cuts. Some more could leave. And what will play out in the election to pick Sonia Gandhi’s successor cannot be predicted,” one leader said.

Sources in the G-23 — or rather G-19 since four leaders have quit — did not rule out one of them contesting in the election of the party chief. “It could be even Shashi Tharoor or Manish Tewari. We don’t know,” one leader said.

“It was unfortunate. When a senior leader like him leaves the party… toh party ko nuksan hota hai,” his friend and former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda told The Indian Express.

His exit dealt a blow to the Congress in the Jammu region where it is struggling to find its feet after the entry of the BJP.

Within hours of Azad’s resignation, two former J&K ministers of the Congress — G M Saroori and R S Chib — and four ex-MLAs/MLCs also quit the party. Former minister Jugal Sharma and ex-MLC Naresh Gupta said they, too, will go with Azad as he is the only one who can bring J&K “out of the present morass”. Some other local leaders are expected to follow suit in the coming days.

Newly appointed PCC president Vikar Rasool Wani, an Azad loyalist who was believed to have been chosen to placate the senior leader, said his resignation will “certainly hit the Congress in J&K as many people will go with him”.

Sonia Gandhi with Ghulam Nabi Azad during an election campaign rally in Anantnag district. (File, PTI)

The leaders of the G 23, meanwhile, spoke in different voices. Expressing “shock” over the development, senior party leader Anand Sharma said the situation could have been avoided had the Congress leadership carried out “serious introspection and course correction” based on conservations with the dissident leaders.

Former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said this was a “classic example” of the working style of the “coterie” surrounding Rahul Gandhi who was at the receiving end of a fierce attack by Azad on Friday.

Senior leader Sandeep Dikshit, who was among the signatories of the G 23 letter, wrote to Azad that he feels that the group had “raised the banner of reform, not a banner of revolt”.

Former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman and veteran Congress leader PJ Kurien, said the objective of G 23 was not to destroy but to act as a corrective force.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Akhilesh Prasad Singh echoed Kurien, saying Azad’s desertion comes at a time the party needed him the most.