Why won't Ghulam Nabi Azad return to Congress so soon?

New Delhi: A media report suggesting a patch-up between former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and the Congress party seems to be far-fetched and exaggerated.

The veteran leader had snapped his over five-decade-long association with the Congress in August last year and a month later in September formed his own political outfit, the Democratic Azad Party (DAP).

The news report claimed that three senior Congress leaders -- former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former union minister Ambika Soni and Bihar unit chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh -- have been tasked to bring Azad back to the party fold.

The report seems to be based primarily on Azad's statement on his former party vis-a-vis the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. Azad had stated that only the Congress can compete against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and not the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which he called a Delhi-based political outfit. Azad had also maintained that he had no issues with the Congress party's policies but with the way the organisation functioned.

The statement should be seen in the context of Azad's positioning in Jammu and Kashmir. There is a perception in the erstwhile state that the DAP has been propped up by the BJP to divide the Muslim vote. His statements regarding Article 370 have added fuel to the fire.

For him, it is extremely important to dispel that notion otherwise the DAP would come as a cropper, especially in the Kashmir valley.

Azad's opponents have already labelled the DAP as the 'B Team' of the BJP.

It would be disastrous for him to abandon the DAP ship and go back to Congress at this juncture. His credibility will take a further hit as he has been accused of being power-hungry. As it is, it is widely believed in Congress circles that he raised a banner of revolt against Rahul Gandhi who was not in favour of giving him another term in the Rajya Sabha. Azad was the prime mover of the group of 23 dissenters, also known as G-23, who sought reforms in the organisation, including elections from top to bottom, apart from a visible and active leadership.

Azad last week suffered a major setback when 126 leaders and workers quit the DAP. Some of his Congress loyalists, including former Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Tara Chand, also quit the DAP.

Realising the media report's impact on his immediate future politics, Azad was quick to dismiss it as baseless. In fact, he went to the extent of saying that the report was planted by some Congress leaders with vested interests to create a sense of uncertainty within his party and to demoralise the DAP cadre.

For now, he has sought to dispel the speculation but then the saying that politics is the art of the possible holds true for the future.