- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
A former parliamentarian, the 60-year-old former cricketer contested the state elections for the first time.
By: Shubham Ghosh
FORMER Indian cricket team captain Mohammed Azharuddin who contested the polls on his home pitch in the southern Indian state of Telangana for the first time on the ticket of the Indian National Congress, did not have a pleasant opening as his Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) rival stumped him out comfortably.
The 60-year-old Azharuddin, who contested the election from the posh Jubilee Hills constituency in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana, lost to Maganti Gopinath, the sitting lawmaker, by 16,337 votes.
Gopinath secured 80,549 votes, while Azharuddin, known for his stylish batting and sharp fielding during the heydays of his cricketing career, got 64,212 votes.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lankala Deepak Reddy obtained 25,866 votes to finish third in the list.
However, even though Azharuddin lost, his party succeeded in wresting power from the BRS which had been ruling the young state since its creation in 2014.
Azharuddin, who hails from Hyderabad, began his political innings with a bang by winning from the Moradabad parliamentary constituency in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 2009 on behalf of the Congress.
However, he lost from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur constituency of the northern state of Rajasthan in 2014 against his BJP opponent. He is currently a working president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee.
Azharuddin, who faced the tough task of taking on the BRS’ sitting MLA Gopinath, was engaged in a triangular contest with the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) fielding M D Rashed Farazuddin who secured 7,848 votes.
The Jubilee Hills seat is home to more than 100,000 Muslim voters.
Azharuddin, whose illustrious cricketing career was marred by match fixing and he ended up playing 99 Tests for India, had earlier alleged that AIMIM indulged in splitting of votes, which the party has been doing in the past too.
(With PTI inputs)
