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Ghulam Nabi Azad quits Congress panel hours after being made chairman

Azad was appointed chief of the campaign committee

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad | PTI Ghulam Nabi Azad | PTI

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad refused to assume the post of campaign committee president of Jammu and Kashmir, citing health reasons.

Azad, who was part of the Group of 23 leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking a large-scale organisational overhaul, has conveyed his decision to the Congress leadership and thanked it for giving him the responsibility, said party sources.

He has, reportedly, also resigned as a member of the party's political affairs committee in J&K.

Azad, who retired from the Rajya Sabha last year, was not renominated to the upper house by the Congress.

His decision comes just hours after a major shake-up of the party's Jammu and Kashmir unit.

Congress, on Tuesday, had appointed Vikar Rasool Wani, considered close to Azad, as the party's J&K chief. Raman Bhalla has been named the party's working president in the UT. Wani replaces Ghulam Ahmad Mir who had tendered his resignation in July after holding the post for eight years.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi accepted the resignation of Mir.

The Congress president appointed president and working president of the J&K unit and also constituted the campaign committee, political affairs committee, coordination committee, manifesto committee, publicity and publication committee, disciplinary committee and pradesh election committee of the UT unit with immediate effect, the statement said.

Wani (46), a resident of Banihal township of Jammu region's Ramban district, is a two-time former legislator who also served as a minister during the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference-Congress coalition government between 2009-14.

Tariq Hamid Karra has been made the vice chairman of the campaign committee, while G.M. Saroori will be its convener, according to the statement.

The campaign committee comprises 11 leaders with PCC president and working president its permanent invitees. Mir, Tara Chand, Thakur Balwan Singh, T.S. Bajwa, Shabir Khan, Neeraj Kundan, Abdul Majeed Wani and Fairoz Khan are also part of the campaign committee.

Gandhi also set up a political affairs committee with Karra as its chairman and it included the likes of Azad, Mir and Saifuddin Soz.

The political affairs committee also includes Peerzada M. Syed, Taj Mohiuddin, Tara Chand, Mula Ram and Khemlata Wakhlu.

The committee comprises nine leaders with AICC in-charge, PCC president and working president being permanent invitees in the panel.

The party also formed an 11-member coordination committee headed by Mir, 12-member manifesto committee under the chairmanship of Soz and nine-member publicity and publication panel led by Mula Ram.

A seven-member disciplinary committee has been formed with Taj Mohiyuddin as the chairman.

A Pradesh Election Committee headed by PCC chief has also been set up.

The Election Commission had recently revised to November 25 the date of final publication of voters list of Jammu and Kashmir - the union territory's first voters' list after the boundaries of assembly seats were redrawn in the delimitation exercise.

After the rolls are published, the EC can technically hold assembly polls in the UT. A timeline for election is yet to be officially decided.

(With PTI inputs)

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