The Congress on Wednesday said senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was consulted several times before finalising the names in the revamped Jammu and Kashmir unit of the party, rejecting reports that the former union minister was not on board.
The assertion came a day after Azad declined to head the Campaign Committee for Jammu and Kashmir after he was appointed to the post by party chief Sonia Gandhi. Azad declined to comment on his decision stating that he is already part of the party but chose to comment on the latest Bihar political development saying the Congress did not gets its better share in the newly formed combination.
Azad is a prominent member of the so-called 'G23' group within the Congress which has been critical of the leadership and has been seeking an organisational overhaul. He retired from the Rajya Sabha last year and was not renominated to the upper house by the Congress.
Sources in the party said there were four rounds of consultations held with Azad before finalising the revamped panels of the Jammu and Kashmir unit of the party and the last such consultation with party leaders was held on July 14. They said that the names of party leaders in the revamped unit were decided from the list provided by Azad himself.
The sources also said that Azad was the chairman of the campaign committee when Saifuddin Soz was the president of the party's J&K unit. Azad, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir who was also the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha before he retired from the upper house, has declined to head the state campaign panel on grounds that he is a member of the party's all-powerful working committee and thus cannot a post at the state level now.