HYDERABAD: Prof. M. Kodandaram and veteran journalist Amer Ali Khan were sworn in as members of the Legislative Council under the Governor’s quota on Friday. The oath was administered by Legislative Council Chairman Gutta Sukhender Reddy in a ceremony attended by ministers Ponnam Prabhakar and Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy.
Prof. Kodandaram, a former political science professor at Osmania University, who played a key role in the Telangana statehood movement as convener of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC), expressed his gratitude to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy for nominating him.
He stressed his commitment to honouring the sacrifices of those who participated in the Telangana movement. Prof. Kodandaram, who heads the Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS), had aligned with the Congress during the Assembly elections.
Amer Ali Khan, news editor of a prominent Urdu daily newspaper and son of its Chief Editor Zahid Ali Khan, also took the oath as MLC. His father had previously been associated with the TD and unsuccessfully contested the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Hyderabad.
The two were initially nominated to the Legislative Council under the Governor's quota in January 2024, and the State Cabinet reaffirmed their recommendation earlier this month on August 5. Their initial nominations had been set aside by the High Court in March following petitions by BRS leaders Dasoju Sravan and Kurra Satyanarayana, whose nominations made by previous BRS government in August 2023 had been rejected by the then Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan in September 2023 on grounds of political alignment.
After BRS lost power in Assembly polls in December 2023, the new Congress government nominated Prof Kodandaram and Amer Ali Khan in the place of BRS government nominees. The Supreme Court stayed the Telangana High Court's judgment on August 14 allowing the oath-taking to proceed. However, the appointments of Prof. Kodandaram and Khan remain subject to the outcome of ongoing legal proceedings.
