Jammu:
Even as the Congress has been able to win Assembly elections in three states, the crisis in the party’s J&K unit is far from over. Senior Party leaders in the state have met top party leadership in New Delhi and demanded replacement of Ghulam Ahmed Mir as PCC Chief.
It seems that the oldest political party of the country is a divided house in the state and incumbent Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ghulam Ahmed Mir hasn’t been able to mobilise the cadre.
For the past three years, since Mir took over the reins of the state unit from Saifuddin Soz, not a single rally of national president Rahul Gandhi has been organised in the state. Even senior leaders have remained away from attending party meetings chaired by the state president.
Soz said during his eight-year tenure as the state Congress chief, Rahul Gandhi was a regular visitor to the state and travelled every nook and corner with him. “When I was the PCC president, he travelled a lot with me. After I asked Sonia Gandhi to relieve me of the charge, Rahul Gandhi hasn’t visited the state,” he said.
“Jammu and Kashmir is passing through difficult times and during a meeting of Congress leaders in Srinagar a couple of months back, which was attended by Ambika Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad, I had asked the Congress leaders of Jammu to shun soft Hindutva politics and go aggressive by raising the issues of the people of Jammu,” Soz added.
Congress leaders also feel that there is a need of a revamp in the party to explore the chances of coming back to power on its own.
“We need a rejig in the party and want the high command to announce Ghulam Nabi Azad as the Chief Ministerial candidate as well as the in charge of the party in J&K so that the Congress can win the forthcoming Assembly elections,” Ghulam Mohammad Saroori, former MLA and senior Congress leader said.
There is a general sentiment in the party that the incumbent PCC president is not acceptable in all three regions.
“We believe that the Congress needs a state president who has acceptability all over the state. The incumbent president doesn’t have the capability and capacity to take all the three regions along,” another senior Congress leader said.
“If changes are not made before elections next year, the performance of the Congress may go from bad to worse,” he added.
