Mohd. Azharuddin Appointed Working President of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee

Guwahati: Congress on Friday appointed former Indian cricket captain and former MP from Moradabad, Mohd. Azharuddin as the working president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee.

Azharuddin who is appointed ahead of the Telangana Assembly elections will be the fourth working president. However, he is associated with the party’s ongoing electoral campaign.

Mr Azharuddin, who is keen on contesting from Secunderabad Parliamentary constituency, said if the party wishes he won't mind contesting from any other constituency in Telangana.

Speaking to media in Hyderabad after his appointment, Mr. Azaharuddin demanded an apology from Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for "intimidating" a person who questioned him on the unfulfilled promise of 12% reservations to Muslims. He said Mr. Rao should have answered the question instead of intimidating the person who posed it.

The former ace batsman said he was not here to “get something from politics but give back something to the society” after playing cricket for the country for a long time.

Azharuddin has contested Lok Sabha election twice on Congress ticket, winning from Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad in 2009 and losing from Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur constituency in 2014.

The Congress’ Telangana unit last year had urged Azhar to contest either the state assembly polls or the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, from the state.

The Congress-TDP combine is putting up a tough fight in a bid to unseat Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s K Chandrashekar Rao’s TRS that has been ruling the state since 2014.

Mr. Azharuddin predicted that the People's front of Congress, TTDP, CPU and Telangana Jana Samithi will have an easy sail in the forthcoming Assembly election and asked people to vote for the alliance

In other announcements, BM Vinod Kumar and Jaffer Javed were appointed as vice-presidents of the Telangana unit.

Ex-MP and son of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Sandeep Dikshit has been appointed as secretary attached to Civic and Social Outreach Congress.

Also Read: Supreme Court Issue Notice to Ramdev on Publisher’s Plea Challenging the Delhi High Court’s Order