‘Unforeseen circumstances’: Ghulam Nabi Azad steps back from campaign trail, says candidates free to withdraw candidacy

Former Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad launched the DPAP in September 2022. (File photo: PTI)

In a potentially devastating blow to the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) just ahead of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, its founder president Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday announced that he would be unable to campaign for his party candidates in wake of “unforeseen circumstances”.

“The unforeseen circumstances have forced me to step back from the campaign trail… The candidates should assess whether they can continue without my presence. If they feel my absence would impact their chances, they have the freedom to withdraw their candidacy,” Azad said in a statement to a local news agency.

The announcement came two days after 13 candidates filed their nominations on a DPAP ticket for polling in the first phase of elections scheduled to be held for 24 seats on September 18.
While party spokesperson Salman Nizami maintains that Azad’s announcement only pertains to the first phase of polling, DPAP candidates stare at an uncertain future two years after the party was founded.

According to The Indian Express, there is no clarity within the party on whether there will even be any candidate lists for the second and third phases of voting on September 25 and October 1, respectively.

Since its inception in 2022 following Azad’s exit from the Congress, the DPAP never really managed to take off as expected. The Assembly elections were expected to be the first big test for Azad to prove his mettle after a negligible performance in the Lok Sabha elections.

A Muslim face from the Hindu-majority Jammu region, and a former Chief Minister, Azad’s DPAP drew several top leaders of the Congress when the party was incepted. In the two years that followed, almost all these leaders have either returned to the Congress or are weighing their options as Independents.

While senior leaders like former Deputy CM Tara Chand, ex-minister Manohar Lal Sharma and former MLA Balwan Singh were expelled three months after the party was formed, others including ex-minister and DPAP vice-president Abdul Rashid Dar, Sham Lal Bhagat, Naresh Gupta and the president of the party’s women’s wing for Kashmir, Saima Jan, quit eventually.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the weakened DPAP flopped completely in the Anantnag-Rajouri and Udhampur-Doda constituencies where it put up candidates. Both its nominees lost their security deposits, not managing to take the lead in even one of the 36 Assembly segments in the two parliamentary seats.

Then too, Azad had dealt his party a shock just ahead of the polls by going back on the decision to contest from the Anantnag-Rajouri Lok Sabha seat himself. As a constituency that includes parts of both Jammu and Kashmir provinces post-delimitation, it was an ideal seat for Azad.

The Lok Sabha polls setback was followed by the exit of senior DPAP leader Taj Mohiuddin and tribal leader Haroon Khatana. On Tuesday, Azad loyalist Ghulam Mohammad Saroori sprang a surprise by announcing that he was filing his nomination as an Independent from the Inderwal Assembly segment of Kishtwar.