Hyderabad: Former Indian cricket captain and Congress leader Mohammad Azharuddin was sworn in as a cabinet minister of Telangana on Friday, amidst protests by the BJP.
The Raj Bhavan had earlier released a statement saying that Azharuddin would take oath as a minister on Friday morning and the oath will be administered by governor Jishnu Dev Varma.
“The proposal to give cabinet berth to Mohd Azharuddin is nothing but an attempt to woo and garner the votes of a section of the voters in the upcoming Jubilee Hills by-election and a gross violation of model code of conduct,” BJP’s Shashidhar Reddy said.
According to him, though the model code of conduct was not applicable to the entire city of Hyderabad, the proposal to induct Azharuddin into the state cabinet would adversely affect the by-election in the Jubilee Hills constituency, of which the former cricketer is a voter.
Reddy also pointed to the fact that Azharuddin had contested elections from the Jubilee Hills constituency in the 2023 Assembly elections.
“So, offering him a ministry is nothing but a mala fide intention of the Congress to woo a section of voters in the Jubilee Hills assembly constituency,” he said.
The Congress, however, called this the BJP’s attempt to deny representation to the minorities in chief minister A Revanth Reddy’s cabinet. It also accused the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) of collaborating with the BJP in this.
The Telangana Assembly has 119 legislators. The former cricketer’s appointment to the ministry is seen as a crucial step, as the Congress has been fighting tooth and nail in the Jubilee Hills by-poll, where over a lakh Muslim voters could play a decisive role.
Till now, there was no minority representation in the state cabinet and according to sources, the Telangana Congress had appealed to the leadership in Delhi to include Azharuddin. He will now be the first minister from the minority community in Revanth Reddy’s cabinet.
There is also speculation that the the AICC also wants to use this move to show its commitment towards the minorities in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections. Bihar has a significant percentage of Muslim voters.
While Azharuddin had been unsuccessful in his attempt to make it to the Telangana Assembly as an MLA from Jubilee Hills constituency in 2023, he was nominated as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) under the Governor’s quota by the Telangana government in the last week of August.
