Days after the first cabinet expansion in J&K, cracks are visible in the Congress party, with two of its senior-most leaders from the state locking horns in public.
Former J&K chief minister and Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, without naming JKPCC president Saif ud din Soz, has blamed the latter for destabilising the NC?Congress coalition.
The rivalry of these two Congress leaders is old, but this is the first instance when the two have sparred in public.
Sources in the party said the outburst from the Union health minister draws its fire from the fact that the JKPCC president Soz managed to keep away some Azad loyalists from the cabinet in the expansion.
In a statement directly aimed towards JKPCC president Soz, Azad said that his (Soz?s) introduction into national politics was an accident. ?He doesn?t have any following even in his own constituency and is befooling the NC, Congress and PDP by trying to destabilise the coalition government in the state?.
Soz took strong exception to the Union health minister?s accusations. ?A section of press in J&K has published the statement of a senior leader casting insinuations on my integrity and probity. It gives an impression that I was behind the stories that got published in newspapers suggesting the role of the senior leader in destabilising the Cong-NC alliance,? Soz said. ?A two-page document full of ire against my person is unbecoming of a senior leader. I categorically say that I had not spoken to any body in the press regarding warming up of the person towards PDP to destabilise the NC-Congress coalition. I have no knowledge on the background of these stories,? he said.