Hyderabad mayor resigns, may contest assembly poll

Hyderabad mayor Mohammed Majid Hussain resigned Friday and is likely to contest the ensuing assembly elections.

Majid quit on the direction of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which is likely to field him in one of the assembly constituencies in the city. He submitted his resignation to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Commissioner Somesh Kumar.

As the Congress and the MIM are sharing power in GHMC, MIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi Thursday called on state Congress chief Botsa Satyanarayana to convey his decision to pull out Majid.

Though under an agreement between the two parties the two-year term of Majid came to an end on Jan 3 this year, he continued in the post as Congress did not claim it for various reasons.

Majid had taken over as mayor in 2012 after Congress' Banda Karthika Reddy completed her two-year term.

Under the agreement reached between the two parties after 2009 elections to GHMC, the mayor post was to a Congress candidate for the first two years and to MIM for the next two years. The parties had agreed to take a decision for the last year with mutual consent.

MIM snapped ties with Congress in late 2012 by accusing then chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy of being "communal". However, its mayor continued in the post.

At 31, Majid was the youngest mayor in the country. It was after a gap of 21 years that a MIM leader had become Hyderabad mayor.