Lok Sabha elections: Former Jammu and Kashmir CM Ghulam Nabi Azad to contest polls from Anantnag

Former J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Anantnag parliamentary seat. Azad had ended his five-decades long association with the Congress in 2022, later floated his own outfit named Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP).

"Today the core committee of DPAP met and we have decided that (party president) Ghulam Nabi Azad will contest the Anantnag-Rajouri seat," DPAP leader Taj Mohiuddin was quoted by PTI as saying.

This will be the first Lok Sabha election for Azad after he lost from Udhampur constituency in 2014 to BJP leader Jitendra Singh.Azad, who served as Union minister and also the chief minister of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, resigned from the Congress in 2022. In an explosive five-page resignation letter to then interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, the 75-year-old leader said that the grand old party has reached a situation of ‘no return’. “The entire organisational election process is a farce and a sham. At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC has been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting in 24 Akbar Road,” he had written. Azad, who also served as leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, hit out at Rahul Gandhi. “This all happened because the leadership in the past 08 years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the party. While you are just a nominal figurehead, all important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs,” he had written.

The Lok Sabha polls in the Union Territory will be held in the first five phases on April 19 (Udhampur), April 26 (Jammu), May 7 (Anantnag-Rajouri), May 13 (Srinagar) and May 20 (Baramulla). The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.