Ghulam Nabi Azad’s five-decade-long journey with Congress

As Ghulam Nabi Azad quit Congress, here is a lowdown of Azad’s five-decade long stint with the party.

Veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from all posts of the party, including from the primary leadership post. This comes days after he resigned from the organizational post of Jammu and Kashmir, citing health issues. In a five-page note to party interim president Sonia Gandhi, he recounted his journey with the Congress.

Here’s a lowdown of Azad’s five-decade long stint with the Congress:

1. Ghulam Nabi Azad joined the Indian National Congress in Jammu & Kashmir in mid-1970s. In his letter, he said that he was inspired from his student days by the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Lal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Abut Kalam Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose, and other leading lights of our freedom struggle, and also highlighted why it was “a taboo joining the party” at the time.

2. Between 1973 and 1975, he was serving the Congress as a block general secretary after completing his post-graduation from Kashmir University.

3. He took on the responsibility of the presidentship of the Jammu & Kashmir Youth Congress in 1975-76.

4. The veteran Congress leader became the general secretary of the Indian Youth Congress in 1977. During this time, he went from jail to jail along with thousands of Youth Congress leaders and workers. According to the ex-Congress leader, his “longest period in Tihar jail was from 20th December, 1978 to end of January 1979” – for leading a protest rally against the arrest of Indira Gandhi.

5. In 1980, Ghulam Nabi Azad took over as the national president of the Indian Youth Congress. Since the mid-1980s, he has also served as a general secretary of the AICC.

Also read: Ghulam Nabi Azad quits Congress LIVE: ‘Sad day for party’- ex-leader Ashwini Kumar

6. The veteran Congress leader has served as the union minister from 1982 to 2014.

7. He was also a member of the Congress Parliamentary Board headed by the late Rajiv Gandhi till his assassination in May 1991, and then by PV Narasimha Rao. Azad has also been a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) for nearly four decades.

8. Ghulam Nabi Azad has also served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha for seven years.