New Delhi: Former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who quit the party and had attacked the party leadership, may return to the party as veteran Congress leaders are working behind the scenes for an amicable formula for his return to the party.
However, neither sources within the Azad camp nor in Congress have confirmed the development. But sources claim that the change of guard in the party and a recent win in Himachal Pradesh have made both factions rethink their stance.
Ahead of the Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, Azad had said that only Congress could fight BJP, not AAP, and then Digvijaya Singh had even invited him to join the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Recently, Azad had expressed differences with the BJP over the issue of Kashmiri Pandits.
Azad has formed his own party and is on tour in his home state. As the Bharat Jodo Yatra is about to enter his state Kashmir, if things were favourable, he may join the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Except for Azad, G-23 leaders Anand Sharma, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Manish Tewari are still in the party and have been given prominence in the party. Sharma, Hooda and Tewari had proposed Mallikarjun Kharge and had even voted in his favour when he fought the party’s Presidential polls.
Azad had resigned in August following his differences with the party high command and had targeted Rahul Gandhi and his coterie.
Azad joined Congress in the mid-1970s and held many important positions in the party and the government.
He was a minister in the Central cabinet headed by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh.
Since 1980, Azad was the general secretary of AICC under every party president during that period. He was the chief minister of J&K from 2005 to 2008.
In his resignation letter addressed to party president Sonia Gandhi, Azad said, “You are aware that I had an extremely close relationship with your family from late Mrs Indira Gandhi, late Shri Sanjay Gandhi onwards including your late husband. In that spirit, I also have great personal regard for your individual trials and tribulation which will always continue.”
