Nizam Club
Hyderabad: Members of the historic Nizam Club voted in a new Secretary and Vice President, with challengers unseating two sitting office-bearers, even as the polling was clouded by attempts to divide voters along caste and religious lines.
B. Muthyam Reddy defeated incumbent Secretary Amarender Reddy for the post of Secretary, while Ashfaq Ahmed beat Asha Lata to be elected Vice President, according to results declared late in the night. For the three Managing Committee seats in the contest, Aamer Javeed, Shailaja Reddy and Rishi Rathore were declared elected.
A total of 2,455 of the club’s 6,500 members turned out to vote for the Secretary, Vice President and three Managing Committee posts.
The polling was marked by what several members described as a bid to give the club’s internal election a sectarian colour, much like a general election. A senior member who has held the posts of President and Secretary of the club, and who occupies key positions in other city societies, was seen by members as trying to sway voters on religious lines and to cast the contest as “Reddy versus Backward Classes (BC).” Members said they resisted the pitch and refused to let the poll at one of Hyderabad‘s oldest clubs be reduced to questions of caste and community.
Two candidates were in the fray for Secretary, Amarender Reddy and B. Muthyam Reddy, while Asha Lata and Ashfaq Ahmed contested the Vice President’s post. Six candidates, among them Aamer Javeed, Hashmat Ali Looniya, Shailaja Reddy, Pola Sridhar and Rishi Rathore, were in the running for the three Managing Committee seats.
Elections to the posts of President, Joint Secretary and the remaining Managing Committee members are scheduled for September.
This post was last modified on July 6, 2026 12:27 pm