Ghulam Nabi Azad, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has shocked several central party leaders with his refusal to take on new duties. They claim he was heavily consulted before the party panels in J&K were reorganised, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi took into account her suggestions.
Azad sent his resignation from two significant panels on Tuesday, just hours after the Congress revealed seven party panels and named a new president and working president in the J&K unit. I have resigned as the campaign committee chairman in J&K and as a member of the political affairs committee there, said Azad, who was one of the G23 leaders that wrote to Gandhi in 2020 to request a significant organisational change.
According to a party official, Azad told his assistants that the leadership had rejected his suggestions for the creation of party panels in J&K. The functionary continued,
According to a source close to Azad, someone with his experience should be given significant roles in the party's central leadership and reinstated in the Rajya Sabha rather than being selected to chair state-level bodies. As the leader of the opposition, Azad left the Upper House of Parliament in February 2021.