GHMC elections: 'Only Trump left to campaign,' Owaisi slams BJP
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi took a jibe at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for treating the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls as an election to pick the next Prime Minister The BJP has called some of its top leaders for election campaigning. Notably, Union Home Minister Amit Shah also attended several poll-related events in Hyderabad on Sunday.
"The Hyderabad election has been treated in such a way that it seems Hyderabad's people are going to pick a new wazir-e-azam (PM)," Owaisi said at a public rally at Hyderabad's Langer House Saturday. He added, "The BJP is calling its big ministers and Chief Ministers. Only Donald Trump is left to campaign for Hyderabad's municipal elections. But nothing will matter. AIMIM will succeed."
The BJP has brought out its top leaders, including National President JP Nadda and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, to campaign for the elections, scheduled on December 1. After holding a roadshow in Hyderabad on Sunday, Shah addressed the media at the party's Telangana headquarters in Nampally where he displayed confidence that the next city Mayor would be elected from the BJP.
Shah told reporters, "If you give the BJP one chance, we will remove all illegal construction which blocks water exits and make sure the city never gets flooded again." He also said that he wanted to "rid Hyderabad of the Nawab-Nizam culture," and "no one will be a second-class citizen." "We will take Hyderabad and Telangana from dynasty to democracy, from corruption to transparency."
Notably, campaigning for the GHMC polls has been mired in controversy with several communally sensitive speeches. BJP state President Bandi Sanjay recently threatened to conduct "surgical strikes" to expel the "Rohingyas and Pakistanis" in Hyderabad. Bengaluru South MP Tejaswi Surya called Owaisi a "modern Mohammed Ali Jinnah." Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has appealed to Hyderabad's voters to choose "progressive parties."
