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Hyderabad, October 30 (IANS) Former Indian cricket captain and Congress leader Mohammad Azharuddin will take oath as a minister in the Telangana cabinet on Friday.
Governor Jishnu Dev Verma will administer the oath to Azharuddin at Raj Bhavan at 12.15 pm.
Officials on Thursday confirmed that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and other ministers will attend the function.
In August the state Cabinet decided to nominate Azharuddin as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) under the Governor’s quota.
Azharuddin is likely to be allotted the Minority Welfare Department.
Azharuddin, a former MP, is currently the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) and a member of the Political Affairs Committee of the TPCC.
The 62-year-old is being inducted into the cabinet ahead of the November 11 by-election in Jubilee Hills assembly constituency.
The former cricketer, who unsuccessfully contested the elections from his home constituency in 2023, was keen to contest again, but the Congress leadership decided to field Naveen Yadav and promised a cabinet berth to Azharuddin.
With Azharuddin’s swearing-in, the strength of the state cabinet will increase to 16. He will be the first Muslim minister in CM Revanth Reddy’s cabinet.
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.
Azharuddin’s appointment as minister is being seen as the Congress party’s move to reach out to Muslims, who form about 30 per cent of the voters in Jubilee Hills.
During the ongoing election campaign, BRS has been targeting the Congress party for ‘betraying’ the Muslim community and ‘betraying’ Azharuddin.
Interestingly, BJP has urged the Election Commission not to allow cabinet expansion as Azharuddin is being made a minister to please a section of voters in the by-elections. The party has called it a violation of the model code of conduct.
The cabinet was formed with the swearing-in of Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and 11 ministers on December 7, 2023.
After a long delay, the cabinet was expanded with the inclusion 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.
–IANS
MS/PGH