Hyderabad, Oct. 31 -- Sometimes I think that the Congress does not even try to hide that it is out of cards in politics. With the Jubilee Hills by election coming up soon, one would have thought that the ruling party maybe would have for a change tried to actually make significant social welfare announcements, for Muslims and others. But nope, it chose mere optics or tokenism instead with Azharuddin's inclusion in the Telangana cabinet.

The fact that it took the party nearly two years after winning the Telangana Assembly elections in 2023 to include a Muslim face in the cabinet shows that it is not serious. Added to that the fact that it chose this exact moment before the Jubilee Hills by election to include Mohd Azharuddin pretty much s...