{"id":81175,"date":"2025-10-30T15:52:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=81175"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:54:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:54:31","slug":"azharuddin-to-take-oath-as-telangana-minister-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/?p=81175","title":{"rendered":"Azharuddin to Take Oath as Telangana Minister on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Hyderabad, Oct 2025 :<\/strong> Former Indian cricket captain and senior Congress leader <strong>Mohammed Azharuddin<\/strong> will be sworn in as a minister in the <strong>Telangana Cabinet<\/strong> on <strong>Friday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Governor <strong>Jishnu Dev Varma<\/strong> will administer the oath of office to Azharuddin at <strong>12:15 p.m.<\/strong> at <strong>Raj Bhavan<\/strong>, officials confirmed on Thursday. Chief Minister <strong>A. Revanth Reddy<\/strong>, Deputy Chief Minister <strong>Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka<\/strong>, and other cabinet colleagues are expected to attend the ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The development follows the state Cabinet\u2019s decision in <strong>August<\/strong> to nominate Azharuddin as a <strong>Member of the Legislative Council (MLC)<\/strong> under the <strong>Governor\u2019s quota<\/strong>. Party sources said he is likely to be allotted the <strong>Minority Welfare portfolio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Azharuddin, 62, is currently the <strong>Working President of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC)<\/strong> and a member of the party\u2019s <strong>Political Affairs Committee<\/strong>. A former Member of Parliament from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, he has been an active Congress leader since joining the party in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His induction into the Cabinet comes ahead of the <strong>November 11 by-election<\/strong> to the <strong>Jubilee Hills Assembly constituency<\/strong>, a politically sensitive seat with a significant Muslim electorate. The move is seen as an attempt by the Congress to reach out to the community, which accounts for nearly <strong>30 per cent of the voters<\/strong> in Jubilee Hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Azharuddin had unsuccessfully contested from his home constituency in the <strong>2023 Assembly elections<\/strong>. Although he was keen to contest again, the Congress leadership decided to field <strong>Naveen Yadav<\/strong> and assured Azharuddin a Cabinet berth instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once sworn in, Azharuddin will become the <strong>first Muslim minister<\/strong> in Chief Minister Revanth Reddy\u2019s Cabinet. His inclusion will raise the Cabinet strength to <strong>16<\/strong>, with <strong>two more positions<\/strong> still vacant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Congress government has faced criticism from various quarters, including minority groups, for not including a single Muslim minister since coming to power nearly two years ago. The elevation of Azharuddin is widely seen as a <strong>course correction<\/strong> to address this discontent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the ongoing by-election campaign, the <strong>Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS)<\/strong> has accused the Congress of \u201cdeceiving\u201d the Muslim community and \u201cbetraying\u201d Azharuddin by denying him a ticket in 2023. The Congress hopes his appointment will help counter this narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the <strong>Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)<\/strong> has objected to the Cabinet expansion, urging the <strong>Election Commission<\/strong> to intervene. The BJP alleged that the move to induct Azharuddin was aimed at <strong>influencing voters<\/strong> in the bypoll and therefore violated the <strong>Model Code of Conduct<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Telangana Cabinet was originally constituted on <strong>December 7, 2023<\/strong>, with the swearing-in of Revanth Reddy and 11 ministers. It was later expanded on <strong>June 8, 2025<\/strong>, when three new ministers were inducted. The Congress leadership, however, had kept three positions vacant, allowing room for political adjustments. The state Cabinet can have a maximum of <strong>18 members<\/strong>, including the Chief Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A former cricketing legend, <strong>Azharuddin captained the Indian team<\/strong> in 99 Tests and 334 One-Day Internationals. He entered politics soon after retiring from the sport and was elected to the <strong>Lok Sabha from Moradabad<\/strong> in <strong>2009<\/strong>. In <strong>2014<\/strong>, he contested from <strong>Tonk\u2013Sawai Madhopur<\/strong> in Rajasthan but lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <strong>2018<\/strong>, he was appointed <strong>Working President of the Telangana Congress<\/strong> and played an active role in the party\u2019s campaign for the Assembly polls that year. His induction into the Cabinet marks a new phase in his political career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hyderabad, Oct 2025 : Former Indian cricket captain and senior Congress leader Mohammed Azharuddin will be sworn in as a minister in the Telangana Cabinet on Friday. Governor Jishnu Dev Varma will administer the oath of office to Azharuddin at 12:15 p.m. at Raj Bhavan, officials confirmed on Thursday. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, Deputy &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":81179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[143],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-81175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","tag-state"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81177,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81175\/revisions\/81177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81175"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=81175"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=81175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}