Kamaal Farooqui, a senior politician from the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, rejoined Indian National Congress, after 20 years of hiatus. The comeback of Kamaal Farooqui is seen as a huge boost for the Congress party in the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections.
After leaving Congress in 2004, Farooqui contested elections on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket but later joined Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
His son Umar Kamaal Farooqui also joined the Congress. A former youth leader of NCP, Umar had functioned as vice-president of the NCP’s student wing while being the party’s state spokesperson.
After joining Congress, Kamaal Farooqui spoke about the importance of defeating the communal, hateful right-wing ideology of BJP and its likeminded parties, and said that “the only party that can truly lead and reinstate the true spirit of our country is Congress.”
With the leader’s homecoming, the Congress party hopes to regain the minority votes it had steadily lost to Assaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra.
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