Three months on into his ‘new’ role, Azad yet to finalize name for party

Jammu: Three months on into his new role as ‘independent’ non Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad’s party has yet to get a ‘final’ name as confusion persists on the one already announced in September.
What is in the name as long as Azad’s name is associated with the new party….This may be the contention of his supporters and some of his over zealous ‘loyalists’. But for any political party to get registered, complete clearance by the Election Commission for purpose of registration, final name approved by the authority is mandatory.
Pertinently, even though a couple of names for the new party headed by Azad made rounds for some time but he himself announced one in September as “Democratic Azad Party” putting all other names aside. However, ECI has raised objections on the name proposed by him and the veteran leader is said to have sent few more names to the poll body. Objection is primarily on the reason that one party with this name already exists in UP which is registered with EC, hence two parties with same name cannot get registered with EC.
Since the loyalists appear possessive and passionate with ‘Azad’ the word has to be necessarily there besides the word party. Media after announcement by Ghulam Nabi Azad in a public rally continued to mention Democratic Azad Party, until a few days back when one of the close confidante of Azad Salman Niazi sought to clear the confusion stating the existing one needed to be prefixed by Progressive or National word.
In the meanwhile, Azad continued with his political activities across two regions and kept his folks and public engaged, regardless of the fact this name not yet approved by EC was used by media for the purpose of coverage.
It was on November 26, a small ad as public notice in one of the newspapers gave some information in this direction. The text primarily read “ This is for the notice of general public that a political party is proposed to be registered by the name of ‘ Democratic Progressive Azad Party’ …..This party has submitted an application to Election Commission of India for its registration as Political Party under section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act. This ad is evidently for the purpose of legal technicalities in terms of any objection by anyone etc.
So far so good. The point of argument remains Ghulam Nabi Azad is a veteran politician and is fully aware of all these possible technical nuances with registration purpose. Why a name was floated earlier which remained in media circulation for over two months and why it took such a long time to finalize the name with such a tall leader …? Now that a word is prefixed with the existing name, one hopes this gets a nod finally from EC before any further confusion.
Updated On 12/3/2022 11:39:34 AM

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