The Congress is facing a crisis in Jammu and Kashmir following the exit of Ghulam Nabi Azad, with leaders and activists leaving the party in droves to join the former chief minister’s camp.

The biggest jolt for the Congress came on Monday when over 50 leaders and activists, including former deputy chief minister Tara Chand, announced their resignations.

Former ministers and legislators Abdul Majid Wani, Balwan Singh, Dr Manohar Lal Sharma, Chaudhary Gharu Ram, Ghulam Hyder Malik and Vinod Sharma have also left the party.

A number of Congress veterans, including Taj Mohidin, Ghulam Nabi Saroori and Mohammad Amin Bhat, had quit the party soon after Azad resigned on August 26. Some leaders from other parties, including the Apni Party, have also joined the new camp.

Azad, who has hinted at launching his own party, will address his first public gathering after his resignation in Jammu on September 4.

The former chief minister’s rivals are accusing him of proximity to the BJP, although he has denied such reports.

In a joint resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, the group of over 50 leaders and activists said they were resigning from all party posts, including basic membership.

“All of us had a very long association with the party spanning over decades and devoted all our energy and resources towards expanding the party in Jammu and Kashmir, but unfortunately we found that the treatment meted out to us was humiliating,” former MLA Balwan Singh said at a media conference as he read out the resignation letter.

The letter claimed the Congress was facing a leadership crisis where “a coterie surrounding party high command is calling the shots in the most irresponsible manner and ruining the party”.

“With our leader and mentor Ghulam Nabi Azad having resigned from the party on the issue listed by him in a letter to you (Sonia), we believe that we should also come out of the Congress…to make some worthwhile contribution in building a positive political society where people are heard and responded too,” the letter reads.

Azad broke his decades-long association with the party on Friday, calling out Rahul Gandhi for his “childish behaviour” and “immaturity”.

Congress’s Jammu and Kashmir chief Viqar Rasool Wani on Tuesday staged a parallel show of strength in Jammu as scores of other leaders and activists joined his event at the party’s head office in Jammu. “The Congress has been fighting the BJP and will fight all those people with vested interests who have deserted the party,” Wani told reporters.

“Congress party and Gandhi family live in the hearts of people.”

AICC in-charge for the Union Territory Rajani Patil recently said Azad’s proposed party would be “BJP’s B team” in Jammu and Kashmir.

There has been intense speculation in Jammu and Kashmir that he has reached an understanding with the BJP and might enter into a post-poll arrangement with the party.

Assembly elections are due in Jammu and Kashmir but the Centre has been delaying it, apparently to pave the way for the BJP to grab power.

The BJP has been smashing all the odds to win a majority in J&K with the Delimitation Commission this year recommending six new Assembly seats to Hindu-majority Jammu against one to Muslim-majority Kashmir, bolstering its quest for a Hindu chief minister in the country’s biggest Muslim-majority region.

Jammu will now have 43 Assembly seats against Kashmir’s 47, despite the latter being more populous.

The Centre had unilaterally set up the commission in 2020 to carve out new Assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir although its erstwhile Assembly had put delimitation on hold till 2026. There are also plans to give voting rights to lakhs of outsiders.

However the BJP's concern is that the Hindus constitute a mere 25 per cent of the population in J&K and there are two major regions — Pir Panchal and Chenab Valley in Jammu — where Muslims are in majority. Azad, a Kashmiri from Chenab Valley, enjoys a significant clout in both areas.

The Congress unit in Jammu and Kashmir, however, has started equating Azad with Amarinder Singh, another Congress veteran, who quit and launched his own party only to lose in the Punjab election.