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Hyderabad, October 29 (IANS) Former Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin is likely to be included in the Telangana cabinet.
Congress sources said he is likely to take oath as minister on Friday (October 31).
This comes two months after the state Cabinet nominated him as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) under the Governor’s quota.
The move to nominate him as MLC had taken everyone by surprise, as Azharuddin had declared himself the Congress candidate for the by-election to the Jubilee Hills assembly constituency.
However, Azharuddin’s reaction to the cabinet decision indicated that the party leadership had assured him of being promoted as a minister.
The former MP had said he felt ‘deeply honored and humbled’ by the cabinet’s decision and thanked the leadership and assured that he was ‘committed to serving the state with integrity and dedication.’
Congress party has recently declared Naveen Yadav as its candidate for the by-election to be held on November 11.
Azharuddin’s inclusion in the cabinet will finally give representation to the Muslim community.
The ruling party has been facing criticism from various sections of the community for not having a single Muslim minister since coming to power almost two years ago.
All the prominent Muslim candidates of the Congress party, including Azharuddin, had to face defeat in the 2023 assembly elections.
After the defeat in the 2023 elections from his home constituency, Jubilee Hills, he was keen to contest again after the seat fell vacant following the death of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) sitting MLA Maganti Gopinath.
However, the party leadership convinced him to accept nomination as MLC with the assurance of a cabinet berth.
The inclusion of the 62-year-old is also expected to help the Congress party reach out to Muslims, who form about 30 per cent of the voters in Jubilee Hills.
During the election campaign, BRS was targeting the Congress party for ‘betraying’ the Muslim community and ‘betraying’ Azharuddin.
The cabinet was formed with the swearing-in of Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and 11 ministers on December 7, 2023.
After a long delay, the cabinet was expanded by the addition of three ministers on June 8, 2025. However, the Congress leadership kept three posts vacant.
The state cabinet can have a maximum of 18 ministers including the Chief Minister.
A few months after joining the Congress Party, Azharuddin was elected to the Lok Sabha from Moradabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh in 2009. In 2014, Congress had fielded him from Ton-Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, but he lost the election.
In 2018, he was appointed as the working president of Telangana Congress. He had campaigned for the party in the 2018 assembly elections, but the party did not field him in the assembly or Lok Sabha elections.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) working president Azharuddin was named a member of the TPCC’s political affairs committee in May this year.
–IANS
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