Congress appoints disgraced cricketer Azharuddin as the working president of Telangana Congress Committee

The Congress party has appointed the doyen of match-fixing, Mohammad Azharuddin as the working president of the Telangana Congress Committee. It is seen as a move to attract the Muslims of the state. Muslims constitute about 14% of the Telangana’s population and can play a decisive role in about 40 seats in the 119-seat Telangana state assembly.

On being appointed as the working president of Telangana Congress Committee, former MP of Moradabad,  Azharuddin said, “I have been given a good post after 18 years. I am very happy.”

He further expressed that looks to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Secunderabad. He said, “My house falls under the constituency. I want to serve the people there.” The constituency which Azhar wants to contest from is currently held by BJP’s Bandaru Dattatreya. 

For those unaware, Muhammad Azharuddin is a former Indian cricketer, who had a tumultuous career. Playing 99 tests and 334 One Day Internationals overall, the cricketer had led India multiple times as a skipper, including his stint as the team’s captain for 3 Cricket World Cups viz. Benson & Hedges World Cup 1992, Wills World Cup 1996 and the first official ICC Cricket World Cup 1999.

The Congress party is rewarding a person who left no stone unturned in maligning the image of India. Azharuddin is a disgraced cricketer. He was found guilty of fixing matches and then banned for life in 2000. Even though the ban was uplifted on the grounds of the decision being ‘unsustainable’ by Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2012, it never meant that Muhammad Azharuddin was deemed innocent of his crimes that tarnished the reputation of the entire Indian cricketing fraternity for once and for all.

This is not for the first time that Congress party is rewarding the person who betrayed and shamed India. In 2009, even as Azharuddin’s case was pending in court, the Congress party not only welcomed him but also allowed him to contest the Lok Sabha elections, which he successfully won, representing the Moradabad constituency of Uttar Pradesh. But he lost in 2014 general elections from Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur constituency in 2014.

Now, the Congress party has installed him as the working president of Telangana Congress Committee. Honoring and awarding a disgraced cricketer goes on to show that Congress party has no moral compass at all. The recent move is also seen as an attempt to placate Azharuddin who had been unhappy about being not given any role in the state assembly elections.

It seems that in the Congress party, it is a prerequisite to career advancements to either be a dynast or have at least shamed the country.

Telangana state assembly elections are scheduled for December 7. Results will be declared on 11 December. With less than a week to go for the assembly polls, it would be interesting to see whether Congress’ recent move to woo Muslim voters of the state would yield any fruitful result or not.