Teary-eyed PM recalls contribution of Azad to country, politics
Rajya Sabha witnessed emotional scenes on Tuesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled the contribution of Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to the country, the House and also his party. An emotional Prime Minister Modi bid adieu to Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is retiring from the House and recalled his long association with the senior leader.
Lauding the senior Congress leader’s contribution to the causes dear to him, the Prime Minister said, “The person who will replace Ghulam Nabi ji (as Leader of Opposition) will have difficulty matching his work because he was not only concerned about his party but also about the country and the House.” Almost teary-eyed, the Prime Minister recalled an incident where
Azad’s personal intervention led to return of survivors and corpses of Gujarat residents who had faced a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir.
“I will never forget Shri Azad’s and Shri Pranab Mukherjee’s efforts when people from Gujarat were stuck in Kashmir due to a terror attack. Ghulam Nabi Ji was constantly following up, he sounded as concerned as if those stuck were his own family members,” the Prime Minister said.
Recalling another incident of Azad’s concern for nation during times of the pandemic, the Prime Minister said, “During this pandemic, Ghulam Nabi ji called and asked me to hold a meeting of all party leaders. I was pleased to receive a nice suggestion that I followed.”
“Posts come, high offices come, power comes and how to handle these, one must learn from Ghulam Nabi Azad Ji. I would consider him a true friend,” he added.
Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech. “I would like to depart with only a few words using a few couplets. A ten-hour speech can be summed up in merely two couplets by a poet. And I would like to take that approach,” Azad said.
Going back to early days of partition, he said, “I am among those fortunate people who never went to Pakistan. When I read about circumstances in Pakistan, I feel proud to be a Hindustani Muslim. “If any Muslim should feel proud in the world, it should be the Indian Muslim. Over the years, we have seen how Muslims countries from Afghanistan Iraq getting destroyed. There are no Hindus or Christians there — they are fighting amongst themselves.”