Azharuddin had contested the last two Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on Congress ticket. (Source: Express File)
Cricketer-turned-politician Mohammad Azharuddin was on Friday appointed as the working president of the Congress in Telangana, which goes to polls on December 7.
The 55-year-old former Indian captain had contested the last two Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on Congress ticket. While he won from Moradabad (UP) in 2009, Azharduddin lost in 2014 from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan).
Earlier this year, Azharuddin had expressed his interest in contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from his home state Telangana’s Secunderabad constituency. Last year, the Congress’ Telangana unit had urged him to contest either the state assembly polls or the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the state.
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Burying their political rivalry, Congress and Telugu Desam Party have stitched up an alliance to take on the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, headed by K Chandrasekhar Rao, in next month’s assembly elections.
Azharuddin’s cricket career came to an abrupt end when he was implicated in the infamous match-fixing scandal in 2000 and was banned by the BCCI for life. However, the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2012 declared the life ban on him as illegal.
In addition, Congress President Rahul Gandhi cleared some fresh appointments in the Telangana Pradesh Congress, approving the names of two vice presidents – B M Vinod Kumar and Jaffer Javed, eight new general secretaries and four secretaries in the state unit.
With PTI inputs
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