Ghulam Nabi Azad didn't praise PM, he was misunderstood: Sources

Sources close to senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad say he was “misunderstood” when he had “praised” Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Jammu few days ago.

Leaving the Congress stunned, Azad had told the rally he and PM Modi are political rivals but he appreciates that “he (Modi) doesn’t hide his true self. Those who do are living in a bubble.” Azad said they both hail from villages and that PM Modi used to sell tea.

Azad, who retired as a Congress MP from Rajya Sabha last month, also held a meeting of dissidents leaders of the party, known as ‘G-23’ club, in Jammu. The G-23 members had written to party president Sonia Gandhi last year seeking an organisational overhaul in the party, which had exposed the rumblings within the party.

According to NDTV, sources denied that he had praised the prime minister and that he was “misunderstood.” They said the former MP would clarify “at an opportune moment”. Azad kept iterating that the PM used to sell tea and it was only to make a point, they claimed.

Azad, also a former chief minister of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, is reportedly waiting for the Congress to send its campaigners’ list to the Election Commission since he will campaign for the party in the upcoming assembly elections.

After Azad, another G-23 member – Anand Sharma – had mounted attack on its Bengal unit for joining hands with a party led by a Muslim cleric in Bengal.

Regarding Congress’s decision to tie up with Indian Secular Front, an outfit recently floated by Abbas Siddiqui of the iconic Furfura Sharif shrine, Sharma had said this was “against the core ideology of the party, and the secularism advocated by Gandhi and Nehru, which is the soul of the Congress.”

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He said in a tweet that these issues should have been discussed by the Congress Working Committee. However, sources close to Azad said that a CWC meeting is not needed at this moment, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who’s campaigning in poll-bound Assam, defended the Bengal alliance, but stayed away from commenting on Sharma and Azad’s remarks.