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| Azad exploring possibility of ‘Ghar-Wapsi’ in Congress? | | |  Sanjay Pandita
Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 4: Former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad seems to be looking for a way back to the Congress party. His own party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP), has failed completely in politics.
Azad worked in the Congress for nearly 50 years. He was Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir from 2005 to 2008 and also served as a Union minister. On 26 August 2022, he quit the Congress. In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, he blamed Rahul Gandhi for ignoring senior leaders and letting inexperienced people run the party. One month later, on 26 September 2022, he started the DPAP. He said it would work for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
The new party did very poorly. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, DPAP put up candidates in three seats. All of them lost badly and could not even save their election deposits. One candidate got only 3.56% of the votes, another got 2.49%, and the third got 2.24%. Together they received only about 80,000 votes.
In the 2024 Assembly elections, the party contested 23 seats out of 90 but won none. Its average vote share was just over 5%. In five seats, the DPAP candidates got fewer votes than “None of the Above” (NOTA). Azad was unwell and could not campaign much, so some candidates withdrew. Many people also believed the DPAP was secretly helping the BJP. This image hurt the party a lot.
After these defeats, almost all of Azad’s close leaders left the DPAP and went back to the Congress. Some returned early, while others came back in 2025. In April 2025, Azad closed down all the party’s offices and committees. The DPAP is now almost finished.
Sources say Azad himself wants to return to the Congress. He has stayed quiet for a long time and has not held any big political meetings.
His recent comments about Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar show he is leaning towards the opposition. On 26 September, while speaking to reporters in Anantnag, Azad said opposition parties should come together and raise the issue of the CEC in Parliament. This was about the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists.
Azad said many names were removed from the voter lists, and this raises doubts about the elections that followed. He pointed out that two Election Commissioners had objected many times to the decisions of the Chief Election Commissioner. “The opposition should unite and speak up in Parliament,” he said. He added that this is not just a political attack because two out of the three Election Commissioners themselves raised objections.
Reports say the two commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, formally objected at least 14 times in 10 months. They complained about decisions on adding or removing voters, changes to forms, and control of the voter database computer system. The Election Commission says all decisions were taken together by all three members. But opposition parties are demanding action against the Chief Election Commissioner.
For Azad, this was one of the few times he has spoken in public recently. It is not clear if he will really return to the Congress or is just trying to stay in the news. What is clear is that the party he started in 2022 has failed, and the 75-year-old leader is once again searching for a new path. |
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