“Will accept Rahul Gandhi, or anyone, as party president if he gets elected”

GHULAM NABI AZAD is no ordinary Congress leader. A former Union minister and chief minister, he has worked closely with three generations of the Gandhi family, starting with Indira Gandhi. Often termed a leader with no mass base, Azad, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has been instrumental in several big victories for the party and has the unique distinction of handling all state units as party in-charge. He supervised Sonia Gandhi’s election campaign when she contested from Bellary in Karnataka, and was among the proposers when Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination for the post of Congress president. So, when the family loyalist emerged as the unofficial leader of a group of 23 Congressmen who, in a letter to Sonia, demanded reforms within the party, it sent shock waves across the party. Azad, however, refuses to call himself a “rebel”. In an exclusive interview with Deputy Editor KAUSHIK DEKA, the 71-year-old Congressman reveals the rationale behind the letter and the future course of action. Excerpts

Q. For the first time in nearly four decades, you are not a Congress general secretary. Is this the price for writing the letter?

I have