The Congress workers in Jammu on Tuesday staged a protest against senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad after heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress workers also burnt an effigy of Azad and demanded party chief Sonia Gandhi to sack him.
The protesters said that the Congress had given Azad the best of the positions, but now instead of helping revive the party, he has started taking the BJP line.
“Congress has always put him (Azad) on the top and when the party needed his experience at the time of crisis, he came to Jammu and Kashmir and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi who deprived us of statehood. It is clear that he is working at the behest of the BJP to weaken the party for his personal gains,” said party leader and former general secretary of J&K Congress Mohammad Shahnawaz Choudhary.
Choudhary also accused Azad of conspiracy against the Congress leadership and demanded his expulsion from the party.
At a function in Jammu on Sunday, Azad had praised Modi, saying he speaks frankly about his past as a tea-seller and does not try to hide his background from the world.
“I admire several things about a number of leaders... I am from a village and I am proud of it. A big leader, our prime minister, says he is from a village, he used to sell tea. We may have political differences, but at least he doesn't hide his reality," he had said.
Earlier, reminiscing about his long association with Azad, Modi had said as chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir and Gujarat, both of them kept in touch with each other. Sharing details of their communication during a terror attack on some Gujarati pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir, Modi said Azad was the first one to call him about the incident.
Azad is among the 23 senior leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in August last year urging her to ensure “full time” and “visible” leadership. It has since come to be known as 'G-23'.
