Hyderabad, Aug 16: Journalist Amer Ali Khan and Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS) chief M. Kodandaram finally took oath as members of Telangana Legislative Council today. Council Chairman G. Sukhender Reddy administered them oath at his chambers.
Amer Ali Khan, news editor of Urdu daily Siasat and Kodandaram had to wait for seven months to take oath after the Congress government had recommended to the governor to nominate them as MLC under the governor quota.
As their nomination was challenged in the Telangana High Court by two leaders of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the court had set aside their nominations, both Amer Ali Khan and Kodandaram had no option other than to wait.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy preferred Amer Ali Khan to give representation to the Muslim community. The Congress government had recommended his nomination in recognition of the social, economic, welfare and educational activities of Siasat, one of the largest circulated Urdu dailies in India.
Amer Ali Khan’s nomination was also seen as a thanksgiving gesture by the Congress party for the newspaper’s support.
Amer Ali Khan has been in the forefront of the movement to demand implementation of 12 percent reservation as promised by the previous BRS government.
The 50-year-old is in-charge of various programmes run by the Urdu newspaper. Having completed his Bachelors in Communication and Journalism from Osmania University and Masters in Business Administration from Sultan-ul-Uloom, he has been instrumental in forming an alliance of 10 Urdu dailies for content. Under his tutelage Siasat has expanded to Bengaluru and Qatar for the Middle East edition.
Amer Ali Khan is son of Siasat chief editor Zahid Ali Khan, who was earlier associated with the TDP and also contested Lok Sabha elections from Hyderabad constituency in 2009.
None of the Muslim candidates of the Congress party were elected to the Assembly. They included former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir and former Indian cricket captain and former MP Mohammed Azharuddin.
Since Shabbir was appointed government advisor in January, Amer Ali Khan’s nomination as MLC also led to speculations that he will be inducted in the Cabinet.
Kodandaram heads Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), which had supported the Congress party in the Assembly elections held in November last year. Kodandaram, a former professor of political science at Osmania University, had played a key role in the Telangana movement as convenor of Joint Action Committee (JAC), which included TRS (now BRS).
However, after the formation of Telangana state, differences cropped up between Kodandaram and TRS leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
Both Amer Ali Khan and Kodandaram were nominated as MLC in January but the High Court had set aside the same in March on the petitions by BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana, whose nomination as MLCs was recommended by the previous government of BRS in July 2023 but the same was rejected by then governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on the ground that the two were “politically aligned persons”.
The High Court had quashed the governor’s decision, rejecting the nominations of Dasoju Sravan and Satyanarayana.
Following the High Court order, the BRS leaders had requested the governor to nominate them as MLCs. However, as the BRS had lost power to Congress, the governor rejected the request.
Sravan and Satyanarayana had challenged governor’s refusal in the Supreme Court. As the High Court had not passed any orders to the governor to nominate them, they pleaded the apex court to give direction to governor to appoint them.
On August 14, the Supreme Court declined to pass any orders but made it clear that if the state and governor proceed further with appointing Congress nominees in the two vacant slots in the meantime, such appointments would be subject to final outcome of the pleas.
The apex court also stayed the operation of the Telangana High Court judgment quashing the decision of then governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to reject nomination of BRS leaders as MLCs.
