Modi bids emotional farewell to reitiring Ghulam Nabi Azad

Rajya Sabha on Tuesday gave farewell to four Members from the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir - Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Shamsher Singh, retiring Wednesday, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Nazir Ahmad Laway, retiring on 15th February. Prime Minister Narendra Modi  heaped praise on the Congress veteran who sat across him in the Rajya Sabha, and teared up as he shared an episode when they were both Chief Ministers - of Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.He referred to a 2007 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir on visitors from Gujarat.  Azad  was the first to call him to inform him about the incident. The Prime Minister said Azad's tears would not stop.

"I will never forget Shri Azad's efforts and Pranab Mukherjee's efforts when people from Gujarat were stuck in Kashmir due to a terror attack. That night...Ghulam Nabi Ji called me...," he recalled, fighting tears, and paused for water. "He sounded concerned like people are concerned about their own family members. That is the kind of feeling he showed." As the Prime Minister stopped to gather himself, there was loud desk-thumping."Power comes and goes. But how to handle it...," PM Modi broke off again and saluted him, letting that gesture speak more than words.

Azad returned the praise, noting that the Prime Minister kept personal ties separate from the context of party politics. "We sparred in the House, we had long arguments, but you never let it affect personal bonds," the Congress leader said. Azad remembered the same incident that left the PM in tears and spoke about his own horror at the terror attack on tourists from Gujarat just two days after he became Chief Minister. "At the airport, children who had lost family members grabbed my legs...I cried out - 'oh God, what have you done? How will I answer these children, these people who came to visit and are going back with bodies...," he said, wiping a tear. Modi said, as a leader of Opposition, it's easy to engage in party politics, but Ghulam Nabi Azad ji rose above this. He said, during the pandemic, it was Ghulam Nabi Azad’s proposal to call an all-party meet to fight the crisis as one nation.

Ghulam Nabi Azad noted that the majority community needs to move forward, and added, "I never went to Pakistan and I think I am fortunate. 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.”  Azad also paid tributes to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and said that it was the former PM from whom he learnt to run the House.“I learned a lot from Atal ji...how to break the deadlock and how to run the House,” Ghulam Nabi Azad said in Rajya Sabha. NCP leader Sharad Pawar said Ghulam Nabi Azad served the nation with utmost sincerity in different capacities.