Rahul Gandhi is the reason I and many others are not in the Congress today, veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Wednesday lamenting that leaders had to be “spineless to survive in today’s Congress.”
In a free-wheeling discussion on the state of the Congress, a party he quit in August 26 last year after bitterness with then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi over a G-23 letter to her demanding party overhaul, Azad also said the UPA-2 Cabinet should have stuck to the 2013 ordinance which then Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi trashed as “nonsense” publicly. “It was a very weak cabinet. The Cabinet should have stuck to the decision. PM should not have bowed before Rahul Gandhi.
No outsider except the President can overrule a cabinet decision. That was a wrong decision of the Cabinet. Today Rahul Gandhi would have been saved by that ordinance.”
Though out of the Congress now, Azad said Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as MP was wrong, but added that the party should “not issue a whip to the leaders to accompany Rahul to ED office or to Surat court. Ex-PM PV Narasimha Rao appeared before the Jain Commission but never asked any leader to accompany him”.
These things have to be voluntary, you can’t issue whips to who is who of the party to accompany leaders, said Azad speaking after the launch of his autobiography “Azaad” by former union minister Karan Singh, who praised Azad’s two-and-a-half year of J&K chief ministership as “the best period of J&K governance”.
Claiming that today’s Congress was far removed from the times of Indira Gandhi who ensured elections to all party posts, Azad said, “You have to be spineless to be in today’s Congress. Rahul Gandhi is the reason I and many other leaders are not in the Congress today.”
Asked if he would return to the Congress should Sonia Gandhi call him up, Azad said, “If it were up to Sonia Gandhi I would not be where I am today. Even if she inducts me back into Congress she can’t guarantee what would be done of me.”
Azad’s oblique reference was to Rahul being the actual Congress party head and calling the shots.
Azad also reminisced his time as General secretary in charge of Punjab, a post he accepted at the peak of Punjab militancy, after resigning as a union minister.
“Rajiv Gandhi didn’t accept my resignation for seven days. He said I was signing my death warrant. But I told him if that was the price of peace in Punjab I was ready to pay it,” said the former minister who worked with four PMs — Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.
Azad survived 26 attempts on his life in Punjab, his book reveals.
Asked today whether he could ally with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir after elections in the UT, Azad said, “No one is untouchable in politics. Here there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends. NC and PDP have both allied with BJP in the past.”
While admitting that his heart was still with the Congress ideology, Azad rued today’s Congress doesn’t want people like him. “Today the Congress only wants politicians who tweet every five minutes and tell the leadership that they are winning 500 Lok Sabha seats after Bharat Jodo Yatra,” the former leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
The book launch of Azad was attended by leaders across party lines — NC’s Farooq Abdullah, NCP’s Supriya Sule, DMK’s Kanimozhi, NCP’s Praful Patel, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Dinesh Trivedi from the BJP among others. The Congress leaders who attended the event include Anand Sharma.
Sonia Gandhi had made up her mind to let Mufti continue as J-K CM in 2005, I put my foot down: Karan Singh
The audience at the launch of veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad’s autobiography on Wednesday were treated to slices of Jammu and Kashmir history, with former Union Minister Karan Singh revealing how he put his foot down when then-Congress chief Sonia Gandhi almost made up her mind to allow PDP chief Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to continue as Chief Minister of the erstwhile state in 2005.
Former Sadr-e-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir Karan Singh, who launched the book, while narrating the sequence of events post the 2002 J&K election, said the National Conference (NC) emerged the single largest party but fell short of majority in the 87-member House and the Congress with the second highest MLAs decided to form the government.
“At some point, Sonia ji decided to invite PDP chief Mufti Sayeed to join the government but as Mufti saheb was, he would never take the simple path; he organised things in such a way that he insisted on becoming CM when the Congress had 21 MLAs and the PDP had only 16. So, it was decided to have three-year rotation with him and Ghulam Nabi as CMs but he insisted to be CM first and I don’t know why but Sonia Gandhi bowed to his impetuousness,” Singh recalled.
He said when the time for rotation came, the matter came to the Congress Working Committee and AK Antony, tasked with giving the feedback on the issue, opened the deliberations.
“Antony opened the meeting, and advocated generosity. I sensed something was wrong because Antony always says what Sonia ji wants him to say.
“When my turn came I put my foot down. I said if you don’t give three years to Ghulam Nabi, why should people vote for the Congress. I also said this was the first time J&K was getting a CM from Jammu province.
“Sonia ji and PM Manmohan Singh had agreed to give Mufti Sayeed the next three years but the CWC eventually decided the right way, and Azad became CM. His term was the best in state’s history,” Karan Singh added.
He then narrated how things went downhill for Azad following an agitation against a decision of the state Cabinet to build permanent structures for Amarnath Yatra pilgrims.
“The proposal to build permanent structures had come from a minister from the PDP. When the decision was taken that government land would be given to the Amarnath Shrine Board for the task, Syed Ali Shah Geelani triggered an agitation against the move. The decision was withdrawn but Kashmir and Jammu burnt for days on end and Azad’s tenure as CM was cut short,” the veteran politician added, lauding Azad as an unusual and remarkable political figure who survived many a storm.
In the book, too, Azad reveals how Mufti Sayeed became CM in 2002 having “thrown a tantrum before Sonia Gandhi”. “The thought to invite the PDP to join the government was mine,” writes Azad.
I and Dr Singh were the only ones who would sit silent in RS: Karan Singh
Lamenting the state of affairs in Parliament, veteran politician and ex-MP Karan Singh today said he and former PM Manmohan Singh used to be the only ones sitting in their seats, while the rest of the MPs would agitate in the well. “What has happened to our Parliament? I and MM Singh were the only two who would sit silent in the Rajya Sabha. Rest would run to the Well of the House. We are setting a very bad example for the people of India,” Karan Singh said.
