Ghulam Nabi Azad

Ghulam Nabi Azad is chairman of the Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP). A former member of the Indian National Congress (INC), he joined the party as block general secretary in Kashmir in 1973. During his 50-year-long association with the Congress, he has held multiple positions including state president, general secretary, and thereafter national president of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). He was general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) a record number of times and member of the Congress Parliamentary Board (CPB) and Congress Working Committee (CWC) for more than three-and-a-half decades. He has served as a Union Minister in the governments of Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh, both during UPA I and II, respectively, from 1982 till 2014. The seventh chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir from 2005 to 2008, Azad served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha for seven years till his retirement in February 2021. He resigned from primary membership of the Congress party in August 2022 and launched his own regional party.