Veteran Congress leader Siddaramaiah was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka at a grand ceremony at Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru today while DK Shivakumar took oath as the Deputy CM. Apart from these two leaders, eight Congress MLAs were also sworn in as Cabinet Ministers, which include five-time MLA BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan.

In the 2023 Karnataka Assembly election, BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan contested on a Congress ticket and won from the Chamarajpet Assembly constituency in the Old Bangalore region. He defeated the BJP candidate, former city Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, by a margin of 53,953 votes.

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Chamarajpet constituency has been a stronghold of BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan as he has won from the same seat in five consecutive Assembly elections.

Khan is one of Congress’ most prominent Muslim faces in Karnataka and is said to be a close aide of CM Siddaramaiah.

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BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan started his political career with the JD(S) and was elected as an MLA in the Chamarajpet Assembly by-poll in 2005. In 2006, he went on to serve as the minister of the Haj and Wakf Board in the Karnataka government led by HD Kumaraswamy.

It is worth noting that Khan was expelled by the JD(S) in 2016 after he allegedly cross-voted for Congress candidates and went against the party’s whip in the Rajya Sabha elections. Later, Khan and six other former JD(S) MLAs joined the Congress in the run-up to the 2018 Assembly elections.

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The seasoned politician contested on a Congress ticket from the Chamarajpet constituency and defeated the BJP candidate by a margin of 33,137 votes. Furthermore, he managed to secure an impressive vote share of 54.35 percent in 2018. He was subsequently made the Minister for Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs after the Congress-JD(S) coalition government came to power in 2018.

The Central leadership of Congress and CM Siddaramaiah have tried to accommodate representation from all communities in the new government and Khan’s inclusion is being seen as an attempt to send the right message to the minority community.

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