AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi slammed Congress politician Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday, accusing the Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP of “working directly with the Bharatiya Janata Party” and assisting the governing party by dividing votes in important areas.
Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s shocking 2019 defeat in the Congress bastion of Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, to senior BJP leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani, Mr Owaisi stated that neither his party nor himself were participating in that struggle. He also chastised the Congress for “non-secular alliances” with ex-Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s (then-undivided) Shiv Sena, which he connected to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, UP.
“Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, your brother lost Amethi. Did I come to battle there? In Maharashtra, you have formed an alliance with Uddhav Thackeray. Is he a secularist? This is the same Shiv Sena whose men demolished the Babri Masjid on December 6. “Are you with them?”
“You are allied with the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi… the same AAP that helped BJP remove Article 370 in J&K… and you call us ‘BJP B-team’?” Mr Owaisi stated during a public meeting.
“In the 2019 election, you lost 92% of the seats in which you ran against the BJP. This time, you’re battling for 300 seats… how many do you think you’ll win?”
Mr. Owaisi’s angry retort came when Priyanka Gandhi blasted the AIMIM leader for cooperating with the BJP while campaigning in Raebareli, another Congress stronghold in Uttar Pradesh.
“I’m telling you again and again. Asaduddin Owaisi works closely with the BJP. Wherever the BJP requires him to field someone to counter other parties, he does so. It has been abundantly obvious in the Telangana elections,” she said reporters.
In the run-up to the May 13 election for Telangana’s 17 Lok Sabha seats, including the Hyderabad seat held by Mr Owaisi’s father and later himself since 1984, the Congress has repeatedly accused the AIMIM of being the BJP’s ‘B-team’.
“I’m telling you again and again. Asaduddin Owaisi works closely with the BJP. Wherever the BJP requires him to field someone to counter other parties, he does so. It has been abundantly obvious in the Telangana elections,” she told reporters.
In the run-up to the May 13 election for Telangana’s 17 Lok Sabha seats, including the Hyderabad seat held by Mr. Owaisi’s father and later himself since 1984, the Congress has repeatedly accused the AIMIM of being the BJP’s ‘B-team’.
Mr. Owaisi’s brother, Akbaruddin Owaisi, categorically denied the accusation last month. “Some believe AIMIM is with one squad, while others say it is with the other. But what I’m saying is that AIMIM will remain where it has always been,” he declared during a poll rally.
