Senior Congress leader and Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the first time in Jammu and Kashmir in his 40-year political career, baptised his son Saddam into politics on Thursday.
In Mr. Azad’s home constituency of Udhampur-Doda, Mr. Saddam, 32, was seen at a political congregation for the first time, waving to crowds from a roofless Gypsy.
Sporting a Dogra turban in orange, he appeared along with Mr. Azad, who wore a Rajasthani turban.
Mr. Azad’s wife, Shameem Dev, a Kashmiri singer, was also in the campaign caravan in the border districts of Samba and Kathua but she did not come out of her car at any of the more than six roadshows.
The cavalcade wended its way through Samba, Gagriyal, Kathua and Hiranagar, parallel to the India-Pakistan international border, virtually treading the venue of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narenda Modi’s March 26 rally and the sites of three fidayeen attacks of September 26, 2013 and March 28, 2014.
Staying away from the limelight, Mr. Saddam earlier hogged the headlines only once, in 2012, when when the mainstream media reported that he had married DLF promoter K.P. Singh’s granddaughter Savitri Singh.
