With Padma to Azad, Modi government puts Congress in a spot

The Congress leadership has been caught unawares and is in a dilemma by a surprising decision of the Modi government. The move to confer Padma Bhushan award on senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad has resulted in the BJP shooting many birds with one stone.

One may not be wrong if one thinks that the BJP has risen above narrow party identities and bestowed the award on Azad, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and former Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

But many, declining to be quoted, say this is a ploy to embarrass the Congress, a party which is in a serious disarray ever since it lost power in 2014.

This gesture may have also made Azad to be sympathetic to the BJP (don’t forget the praise heaped on him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Rajya Sabha during the farewell speech for the Kashmiri leader). Many aver that Azad would be a good bet for the BJP in the troubled state of J&K where Assembly elections may be held this or next year.

Also Read | Padma award to Azad stirs pot of troubles for Congress

The BJP, by this move, has put its main rival Congress in a hopelessly embarrassing position. The party has, three days after the announcement, failed to come out with its reaction, either praising it or asking Azad to reject it.

If the intention of the BJP was to put the Congress in an awkward position, one can say it has succeeded in this bid. Not just that, with the schism created, the party is badly divided on this front.

As regards party seniors, Jairam Ramesh is critical of the move while Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari etc, while congratulating Azad, have taken on the party leadership for not welcoming it.

The party leadership’s discomfort in this needs to be seen from a different perspective too. Azad is the leader of the G23 grouping which has rebelled against the high command; in other words, against the leadership of the mother-son duo of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi.

Also Read | 'No comments': Cong on Padma Bhushan for Ghulam Nabi Azad; division within party on honour

Sibal, Sharma, Tewari are part of the G23 pack. The Padma award came a day after the party nominated Azad as one of the 'star campaigners’ for the elections to the five state assemblies.

Azad himself, unlike Marxist veteran and former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, has not rejected the award, which means, in all probability, he will accept the same.

Of course, he has not made any statement specifically regarding this. This has given rise to speculation that Azad may leave the Congress, form a party of his own and, after the elections in J&K, have an alliance with the BJP if the need arises.

The Congress, on its part, had been generous towards Azad all through his career. Since 1980s, he was almost always a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha till 2021, except for nearly three years when he was made chief minister of J&K. He helmed various portfolios during his many years as minister at the Centre; his last position was Leader of the Opposition in the RS.

In sum, with the move, the BJP has trapped the Congress, its leadership, its senior leaders and Azad on a sticky wicket.

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