A Union Minister at the age of 33, a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, a two-term Lok Sabha and five-term Rajya Sabha member, a former Leader of the Opposition (LoP) and a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) — Ghulam Nabi Azad’s decades-long political career has been distinctively eventful.
A leader with no real mass following, many of Mr. Azad’s friends-turned-detractors in the Congress now argue that his rise was as much a result of his proximity to the Gandhi family as it was about his ability to outsmart his rivals in the party. “Ghulam Nabi Azad Saab and I are contemporaries and came into politics around the same time. While I managed to win the Assembly elections in 1977, he lost his deposit from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K),” Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh said.
“He and I, even today, share a good relationship but I’m disappointed. When he couldn’t win from Kashmir, he was fielded from Maharashtra and became a Lok Sabha member for two terms. He was given five Rajya Sabha terms — that’s 30 years. The party made him Chief Minister and Union Minister. Today, he is talking about being hurt by Rahul Gandhi ji‘s 2013 act of tearing up an ordinance before journalists,” Mr. Singh added.
