Ghulam Nabi Azad: ‘Congress high command can’t claim credit for any state win, has no impact in any seat… All depends on state leaders’

Do you expect restoration of statehood and Assembly elections in J&K soon?

AZAD: It has to take place. We last had elections in 2014. It has been nine years. You can’t have a state without elections for a decade… And, as promised by the government both inside Parliament and outside, statehood will be granted immediately after elections are held. So we are waiting for elections, which naturally will be followed by the restoration of statehood.

There are many interesting observations in your book about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You have said you have known Modi since the 1990s and you share warm ties with him, and that to ‘say that we have come together politically and are plotting something is not only childish but a silly thought’. So is there any possibility of you joining hands with the BJP?

AZAD: I don’t think that in the Valley I am going to join hands with any political party.

What about post-elections?

AZAD: Post… nobody knows. One does not know what will happen after death. But so far as pre-election is concerned, I don’t think I am going to have any alliance with anybody.

The Opposition constantly says that Modi is dictatorial and authoritarian. Do you share that view?

AZAD: Which leader of which political party is not authoritarian within his own party. Everybody (is) in their own way.

But outside the party structure too, the charge is that he is authoritarian as Prime Minister.

AZAD: You see any regional party, they are all one-man shows. Even national parties are all one-man shows. You cite one example of a national or regional party which is not a one-man show.

I am talking about the country.

AZAD: Different states are being run by different parties, regional parties. And they are also a one-man show. I don’t want to take names, but in every regional party, only one person matters… So how is one different? I am not defending Modi, but drawing a parallel. Which national party does not rotate around just one person? Which regional party, in power or out of power, does not move around one person?

The problem is that we are masters at finding a fault with others, but we don’t look within… That includes Ghulam Nabi Azad. Even in my party, only one person matters… I realised after forming a new party that everybody wants to meet Azad. Nobody listens to anybody. I made a battery of senior colleagues in-charge, but everybody wants to meet only Azad.

So this is the tendency in our country. There could be a reason for that… We have been slaves for thousands of years. So we are used to listening to the ruler – a badshah, nawab, raja or maharaja. Then the Britishers came, and after Independence, governments… (where) again everything revolved around one person. Then came the regional parties, where again everything moved around one person… People have been tuned to like this system for thousands of years, and no leader will try to change it.

You have worked closely with Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. You enjoyed good personal equations with all of them. Did Sonia call or speak to you after you quit the Congress?

AZAD: After resigning… no… (There have been) No telephonic conversations with the Gandhi family.

Is there any possibility of you coming back to the Congress?

AZAD: No… Personal relations and regard will remain, but the possibility of rejoining the Congress is remote.

In your book, you say that Congress leaders don’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation and have their heads buried in the sand. That they argue that the party had lost before and bounced back.

AZAD: This is not the time of Nehru or Indira Gandhi or even Rajiv Gandhi. Even Rajiv could not bounce back. Only Indira did. Because she had come up from the grassroots. Indira Gandhi was involved in the freedom struggle as a teenager… So she was attuned, imbibed everything. She was in the hearts of people. The present leadership of the Congress says we don’t want leaders above 60. It is a ripe age for a politician, when people take you seriously… That is a misplaced assessment.

Indira, on the other hand, worked with three generations, leaders like us who were in their 20s and early 30s, or her son Sanjay’s generation, people of her generation, and then the generation of her father, leaders like Jagjivan Ram, who were in the Cabinet of her father… All the three generations felt she was ‘ours’. Why is this not happening today? That means there is something wrong with the person, not with the generation.

You also write how Sonia had given you the go-ahead to replace Tarun Gogoi as the Assam CM when you informed her that Himanta Biswa Sarma had the support of a majority of the MLAs, but that Rahul rejected the idea of a change in leadership.

AZAD: I have great respect for Mrs Sonia Gandhi for three reasons – she is the daughter-in-law of Indiraji, who I respected greatly; the wife of Rajiv Gandhi, who was a gem of a person, and that she herself as a person is exceptional… So I don’t want to go into that episode in detail… I made just a passing reference that when, at her behest, I intervened and met several groups, ascertained who had the majority support, Himanta had an overwhelming majority, seven-eight times more than the then CM (Tarun Gogoi). She was satisfied… Rahul was not in the loop at all, and all of a sudden he intervened and decided there will be no change. And Mrs Gandhi could not do anything.

Why was she helpless?

AZAD: That is between the mother and the son. And that is the problem. It is now new, it has been the problem in the Congress for the last one decade.

Given this situation, do you think the Congress can ever bounce back?

AZAD: I don’t want to comment because in Jammu I made a comment some time ago… When asked who would win Himachal, I said the Congress… The Congressmen, the leadership here had sent a lot of people to J&K to break my party. They (told my party leaders), ‘Azad has given a statement in favour of the Congress, so he is going to rejoin. So you rejoin the Congress before him, otherwise nobody will take you.’ So I will not say anything. If I say the Congress is coming to power, they will say, ‘ He is coming back to the Congress’. If I say the BJP is coming, they will say, ‘He is a BJP man’.

You suggest in the book that after Sonia won from both the Bellary and Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seats in 1999, you suggested that she vacate Rae Bareli for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Both Rahul and Priyanka were not in politics at the time. Did you believe Priyanka would make a better politician than Rahul?

AZAD: That is in the past.

Has Rahul Gandhi’s image changed after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, his disqualification etc? How do you see it looking at it from the outside?

AZAD: I am totally disconnected with the goings-on in the Congress. Neither do I want to remain in touch. But I can say that nothing has changed in the Congress. When I say winning elections… it does not mean change. Winning elections is totally different, at least in the Congress. Wherever the Congress has strong state leaders, they get better results.

Wherever other political parties, regional or national, have a stronger state leadership, there the Congress loses. So in the Congress, the central leadership cannot claim that the party is winning or losing any state because of them. The central leadership has no impact in any seat. They cannot make anybody lose or win. It depends on how strong your state leadership is.

You have good relations with leaders like Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee and many others in the Opposition. Have you ever thought about playing a role in bringing the Opposition parties together?

AZAD: I don’t think anybody now is nurturing national ambitions. Maybe at some point of time some leaders had national ambitions. Everybody now thinks chew as much as you can digest. So, to be a national party in a huge country like ours, to have access to every region, even if they come together, to have access in every corner of the country is very difficult.

What about Opposition unity?

AZAD: It is not going to happen, that is my view as a political worker.

So every party is going to fight the 2024 elections on their own.

AZAD: That is my assessment. Though I wish the Opposition was united, but knowing almost every political party and its leaders like the back of my hand – over the last 40-50 years, I have worked with almost all of them in different capacities – every party is happy in their respective states. Each regional party thinks that if they go beyond their jurisdiction, they will lose, or somebody else will come in their place. So they lose time.

So no united challenge to the BJP in 2024?

AZAD: I won’t say that. There have been challenges… we have seen in 1991 and 2004. Even Atalji (Bihari Vajpayee) in 1998 and 1999, people got together post elections. Even Modiji had an alliance, though he did not require it… And people don’t analyse one thing… that there is nothing one party can add to another party. Take the case of West Bengal, if there is an alliance, what does the Congress have in Bengal? Zero seats. So how can the Congress benefit the TMC? Why should she (Mamata) give up 5 or 10 seats to the Congress? There are states where parties have lost because of the Congress.

Finally, why this book?

AZAD: My book is mostly for the young generation, of any political party. Because these days people say that youngsters are not joining political parties. They are, but it is like McDonalds. They don’t want to cook, they want ready to eat. Join a party and become an MLA, MP and minister. I don’t think that is the way to do politics. You can do that, but your longevity will be five-six years. If you want to stay in politics for 40-50 years like we did, then you have to earn it. You have to go through the grind.

Everybody wants to come by helicopter, we have seen the condition of those who have come by helicopter. If you come from the ground, then you last longer. Particularly if you haven’t worked in the party, your understanding of things, your country and your countrymen will be totally different. You don’t know A, B, C of the ground situation and you can be easily misled… perpetually misled… Nobody can mislead people of our age because we have gone through all of those stages, step by step, inch by inch. So we know what happens at the village, block and district level.

I am an MSc in Zoology, may be the first post-graduate in my block or taluk those days. What was my job? Block secretary of the Congress. So I started from there.