Vijayawada: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Abdul Aziz today unanimously elected as the Chairman of Andhra Pradesh State Waqf Board.
Members of the State Waqf Board at a meeting here elected him as the chairman.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Waqf Board had convened the meeting and one of the members and Prakasam District Collector A. Thameem Ansariya, IAS, was elected as the presiding member to conduct the meeting.
After his election, Abdul Aziz said under the coalition government the Waqf Board will take historic decisions. According to him, out of 60,000 acres of Waqf land in the state, 32,000 acres is under encroachment.
The TDP leader said that protecting Waqf properties is the responsibility of the government and the Waqf Board. He said due to the vacuum created in the Board due to legal issues, it could not take decisions. He vowed to bring reforms in the Waqf Board with the cooperation of the Chief Minister.
Abdul Aziz said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu told him that since he was being assigned the task of protecting God’s assets, he should discharge his responsibilities carefully.
He said some people made baseless allegations against the Chief Minister but he revived the Board to protect the properties of God.
“The Waqf Board should not only protect the assets but it should generate income and ensure that society benefits from it,” he said.
Abdul Aziz, a former mayor of Nellore, is currently TDP in-charge for the Nellore parliamentary constituency. The 64-year-old industrialist-cum-politician was expecting nomination to the Legislative Council but Chandrababu Naidu appointed him chairman of the Waqf Board.
Abdul Aziz, who runs various businesses, started his political journey with YSR Congress Party in 2010. He was hoping to get YSRCP ticket from the Nellore Assembly constituency in the 2014 elections but the party fielded P. Anil Kumar Yadav.
However, he became mayor of Nellore City the same year with the initiation of YSRCP president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. He was the first Muslim to hold the post of mayor of Nellore.
Later, Abdul Aziz joined TDP following differences with Nellore City MLA Anil Kumar Yadav. As 12 YSRCP corporators also joined TDP with him, he continued as the mayor with TDP support.
The TDP fielded him as its candidate from Nellore Rural constituency in the 2019 Assembly elections but he lost to YSRCP candidate K. Sridhar Reddy by over 22,000 votes.
The state government reconstituted the State Waqf Board on December 6 with the appointment of eight members, a week after dissolving the earlier Board.
Under the elected members category, the government appointed Member of Legislative Council Md Ruhullah and Mutawalli Shaik Khaja. The government also nominated TDP leader Abdul Aziz, Shia scholar Haji Mukarram Hussain and Sunni scholar Mohammad Ismail Baig. Three other members were nominated by invoking Section 14(3). They are MLA Mohammed Naseer, Syed Dawood Basha Baqavi and Shaik Akram.
The TDP-led NDA government reconstituted the Waqf Board a week after dissolving the earlier Board constituted last year by then YSR Congress Party government.
