New Delhi: The Congress on Friday appointed former Indian cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin as the working president of the party’s Telangana unit.

The move is being perceived at placating the former parliamentarian, who is said to have been unhappy the way the party was treating him. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009 from Moradabad in UP. However, he lost the 2014 polls from Rajasthan’s Tonk-Sawai Madhopur constituency.

The move comes days ahead of the Assembly elections in the southern state.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi also cleared some fresh appointments in the Telangana Pradesh Congress, approving the names of two vice presidents BM Vinod Kumar and Jaffer Javed, eight new general secretaries, and four secretaries in the state unit.

“Congress president Rahul Gandhi has appro-ved the appointment of Mohammed Azharuddin, an ex-MP, as the working president of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee,” said a statement from AICC general secretary, Ashok Gehlot.

The former cricketer, who hails from Hyderabad, is seeking to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Secunderabad constituency in Telangana.

Among the newly-appoi-nted general secretaries of Telangana Pradesh Congr-ess Committee (TPCC) are Jagadeeshwara Rao, Nagesh Mudiraj, T. Narsa Reddy, Manavatha Roy, Faheem, Kailash, Laxma Reddy and Krishank. The new secretaries of TPCC are Durgam Bhaskar, Daruvu Ellanna, Vijay Kumar, and Bala Laxmi.