Ghulam Nabi Azad

Ghulam Nabi Azad is an Indian politician who spent decades in the Indian National Congress before leaving it. He served as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from 2014 to 2021 and as Chief Minister of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir from 2005 to 2008. Earlier he held national ministerial posts, including Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the government of Manmohan Singh, the latter until he became Chief Minister in October 2005. He was born in 1949 and led his party in the 2002 Jammu and Kashmir assembly election. In 2022 the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan for public affairs. He resigned from the Congress in August 2022 and in September 2022 announced his own party, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party, of which he is founder and chief patron. In 2023 he joined a committee set up by the Government of India to suggest constitutional changes for simultaneous elections.