Former Indian captain and Congress leader Mohammed Azharuddin has denied rumours that he would be joining the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and contest for Lok Sabha from a TRS seat. After the claim of him joining TRS was published in a Telugu daily and a leading English newspaper, the cricketer-turned-politician took to Twitter to deny the news.
“The news doing the rounds in the media of me joining the TRS party in Telangana is incorrect & false,” (sic), he wrote.
The news doing the rounds in the media of me joining the TRS party in Telangana is incorrect & false.
— Mohammed Azharuddin (@azharflicks) January 2, 2019
It was speculated that Azharuddin was displeased with Congress and had recently met Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son, KT Rama Rao at the wedding of Asaduddin Owaisi's daughter, where he reportedly expressed his wish to join the TRS. However, sources from the TRS party also denied the news of any such development.
In November, just a few days before the Assembly elections, Azharuddin was made one the working presidents of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee. The former Indian cricket captain who had joined the Congress in 2009, contested and won from Moradabad seat in Uttar Pradesh. However, in the subsequent election, he unsuccessfully contested from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan.
Azharuddin has now restricted himself to Telangana. Last year in July, he made a claim to a news agency that he was interested from contesting from the Secunderabad Lok Sabha seat, and that the High Command approved of his decision. He had said, “I have visited so many places and villages in the constituency and spoken with farmers and other people, they all welcomed me to contest from there. I have conveyed my feelings. At the end of the day, the party is the supreme power...I want to work for the people there (Secunderabad). I have worked very hard in the constituency, but I don't believe in publicity. What I gathered from my party is that they are also keen that I go there,” he added.
However, his decision was met with strong protests by Greater Hyderabad Congress Committee president, Anjan Kumar Yadav, who has been contesting from the same seat. It is unclear from which seat will he be contesting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.