Veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad announced the name of his new party on Monday nearly a month after he left Congress. The new party would be called the ‘Democratic Azad Party’, he told an event, emphasizing that the party would have “no age limit”. “Young people and veterans would coexist in the party”, he stressed. Azad had ended his decades-long association with Congress on August 26.
“They sent us about 1,500 names for my new party, in Urdu and Sanskrit. The mixture of Hindi and Urdu is ‘Hindustani’. We wanted the name to be democratic, peaceful and independent,” Azad was quoted as saying by the ANI news agency.
“Our priority is to register the party. But since the elections (in Jammu and Kashmir) can happen at any time, related developments would continue,” said the former J&K chief minister, without revealing too many details.
Azad made an acrimonious exit from the big party last month, just before his mass matchmaking program, the Bharat Jodo Yatra, began ahead of the 2024 national elections. His party’s launch comes as his former party tackles a new infighting in Rajasthan, just a few weeks before the elections for the post of president.
As the leader of the ‘Group of 23’ or G-23 as it was commonly known, Azad was among the 23 main party leaders who had sought the restructuring of Congress. After his departure, a large number of leaders left the great old party.
Last year, Amarinder Singh also resigned from Congress after multiple clashes with Navjot Singh Sidhu. He now he has joined the BJP.
(With contributions from the ANI)
