According to official sources on Thursday, Mohammad Azharuddin, a Congress leader and former Indian cricket captain, is expected to take the oath of office as a Telangana Cabinet member on Friday. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is one of the 15 members of the current cabinet; minorities are not represented.
As per the provisions there is still capacity for three more members in the cabinet. There are 119 lawmakers in the Telangana Assembly. Given that the Congress party has been battling valiantly in the Jubilee Hills by-election, where more than a lakh Muslim voters might make all the difference, the former cricket player’s nomination to the ministry is viewed as a pivotal step.
The bypoll is required due to the death of BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath in June this year, following a heart attack. The sources informed PTI that Azharuddin’s swearing-in ceremony as a cabinet minister would take place tomorrow, October 31, at 12:15 PM.
Because minorities are currently underrepresented in the cabinet, the Telangana Congress has asked the Congress’s senior leadership to add Azharuddin to the cabinet. Azharuddin’s name was also authorized by AICC. Congress sources had previously stated that the swearing-in ceremony was expected to take place on Friday.
The former cricket players will become Revanth Reddy’s first minority minister after being inducted. Another Congress leader speculated that the AICC might have expressed interest in Azharuddin’s appointment because of the impending Bihar Assembly elections, in which a sizable portion of the electorate is Muslim in the eastern state.
Last week, in August, the Telangana government nominated Azharuddin as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) under the Governor’s quota. Governor Jishnu Dev Varma has not yet approved the appointment, though. In the 2023 elections, he ran an unsuccessful campaign from the Jubilee Hills Assembly segment.