By Kavita Mistry 
Hyderabad: Denied a ticket in 2018, defeated in 2023, Congress leader and former cricketer Azharuddin was Friday inducted into Telangana CM Revanth Reddy’s cabinet, just ahead of the November 11 Jubilee Hills assembly bypoll.
Azharuddin, or Azhar as he is more commonly known, had unsuccessfully contested the seat in 2023 on a Congress ticket. He lost to Maganti Gopinath of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), whose death earlier this year necessitated the bypoll. The assembly segment falls in central Hyderabad, with over one lakh Muslim voters, of the total four lakh.
With three cabinet berths vacant in the state, Azhar’s was the lone oath administered Friday by Governor Jishnu Dev Varma at the Raj Bhavan here. He took the oath of office in the name of Allah.
By inducting Azhar into his cabinet, CM Revanth Reddy appears to have made an attempt to hit two birds with one stone: appealing to the dominant Muslim community in Jubilee Hills; and address criticism that the Congress cabinet lacked a Muslim face in Telangana, where the community makes up about 13 percent of the total population.
Honoured and humbled to be sworn in today as a Cabinet Minister in the Telangana Government by Shri Jishnu Dev Verma Garu, Hon’ble Governor of Telangana.
My heartfelt gratitude to Shri Mallikarjun Kharge Ji, Smt Sonia Gandhi Ji, Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji, Smt Priyanka Gandhi Ji, and… pic.twitter.com/xXPNnlLbbG
— Mohammed Azharuddin (@azharflicks) October 31, 2025
The 62-year-old, whose stellar cricketing career was cut short by the 2000 match-fixing scandal, joined the Congress just ahead of the 2009 general election.
Azhar was elected to the Lok Sabha from Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh) as a Congress candidate in 2009, and unsuccessfully contested the Tonk-Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan) seat, also on a Congress ticket, in 2014. He was denied an assembly ticket in 2018 and instead appointed working president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC).
He then padded up for the assembly polls in November 2023, from Jubilee Hills. After an early lead, Azhar lost to BRS’s Gopinath by a margin of more than 16,337 votes.
When the seat fell vacant after Maganti’s death in June this year, Azhar was hopeful of jumping in the fray once again, this time with support from the ruling Congress. But the party chose to field Naveen Yadav instead.
Yadav was the AIMIM’s candidate in Jubilee Hills in 2014, and is seen as close to party chief Asaduddin Owaisi. Owaisi, the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad, has endorsed Yadav, while choosing to sit out the bypolls this time around. As for Azhar, his acceptance of Yadav and steadfast loyalty to the Congress has now fetched him a cabinet berth.
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Azhar’s induction a ‘desperate move’?
Two months ago, the Telangana cabinet chaired by CM Revanth Reddy approved Azharuddin’s name, along with that of Telangana Jana Samithi president Prof M. Kodandaram, for nomination to the state legislative council under the Governor’s quota.
The file is reportedly pending with the Raj Bhavan, as officials are said to be weighing the merits and legal implications of a legal tussle pertaining to earlier such appointments.
Not just Azhar, space has also been carved out in Telangana Congress for his son and former cricketer Asaduddin. Asaduddin is one of 69 general secretaries appointed to the Telangana Congress in June by the party leadership.
Father Azharuddin’s tenure as Hyderabad Cricket Association president, meanwhile, was not without controversy. Accused of misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 20 crore— allocated for procurement of diesel generators, firefighting systems, canopies etc., at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium at Uppal here—Azhar and some other HCA office bearers were booked in October 2023, as he was prepping for the assembly polls.
Stating the charges as “all false & motivated,” Azharuddin had then called the episode a “stunt pulled by my rivals to ruin my reputation”. Azhar also reportedly faced Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons in connection with the same case.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders including chairman of the state unit’s Election Commission affairs committee, Marri Shashidhar Reddy, wrote to the poll panel Thursday, urging it to suspend the cabinet expansion “as it violates the Model Code of Conduct”. In the contest in Jubilee Hills, the BJP also expressed concerns that Azhar’s induction, a political move, was aimed at currying favour with Muslim voters in the constituency.
BRS working president and former minister K.T. Rama Rao took to X Thursday to term Azhar’s induction into the cabinet a “desperate” move. “After 2 years in Govt, looks like Congress party is finally waking up to ground realities, Promising the moon to cine workers, inducting Azharuddin in cabinet and ministers desperately running around in Hyderabad Gullies like never before,” he wrote, referring to the Jubilee Hills bypoll.
Congress leaders including Deputy CM Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, in turn, accused opposition parties of conspiring to block Azhar’s induction. Referring to him as “a celebrated sportsman who brought immense pride to India with his globally recognised achievements,” Vikramarka said that, “despite such contributions to the nation, the BJP tried to obstruct Azhar’s entry into the Cabinet purely out of communal prejudice”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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