Hyderabad: Hyderabad is bracing itself for the big showdown between Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Madhavi Latha and sitting All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP Asaduddin Owaisi for the Lok Sabha election.
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven assembly segments: Bahadurpura, Chandrayangutta, Charminar, Goshamahal, Karwan, Malakpet and Yakatpura. All assembly seats, with the sole exception of Goshamahal, are presently held by the AIMIM.
Voting for all 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana will take place during the fourth phase of the ongoing elections on May 13. The counting of the votes will take place on June 4.
The road to win Hyderabad is far from easy for Madhavi Latha, as the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency has been an Owaisi bastian.
This is the first time that the BJP has fielded a female candidate from the Hyderabad constituency.
Latha is the chairperson of Virinchi Hospitals and also the founder of the Lopamudra Charitable Trust and the LathaMa Foundation.Through her charitable trust, a non-governmental organisation based in Hyderabad, she organised various healthcare, education, and food distribution initiatives in the Hyderabad area.
She has also attacked the Owaisi family for communal radicalization and lack of development in the constituency despite their 40 years of rule.
After the announcement of her name against the AIMIM chief, she has raised questions on various issues like "bogus votes," duplication of votes and missing names on voter lists in her media interactions.
Latha also accused the Owaisi of having friendships with "people from ISIS and the King's group." She also accused Owaisi of asking people to "slaughter" cows and "eat" beef, questioning do Muslims have nothing to do else in life other than consuming beef.
Before Owaisi, who won the seat for the first time in 2004, Hyderabad was represented in the Lok Sabha by his father, Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, from 1984. Apart from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, all assembly seats in Hyderabad, except Goshamahal, are held by the AIMIM.
Owaisi, who has served four terms in the Lok Sabha as the elected representative from Hyderabad since 2004, was previously elected as an MLA twice in the erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh.
AIMIM chief is popular in the constituency and has been campaigning from door-to-door, seeking a fifth term in the constituency. He has also raised the issue of political representation and minority rights.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, Owaisi responded to the question of whether BJP candidate Madhavi Latha is a "challenge" in this Lok Sabha Elections by referring to the 1996 elections where BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu lost the elections.
"The elections are elections, whether it is the Municipal Corporation elections or Sarpanch elections or Zila Parishad, MLA or MP, Elections are elections. We take all the elections very seriously. It's not that it's a challenge, all the opponents of Congress, BRS, BJP, or Independent candidates will challenge us. We have full faith and confidence in our efforts and work done in the last five years. In 1996, Venkaiah Naidu was the candidate and at that time, people used to say that it would be difficult for us to win the elections but at that time, we also won the elections. There are elections and I don't have any right to pick and choose any candidate from any party. There will be a party and a candidate in the election. So this is the beauty of democracy: anyone can contest the elections and challenge anyone," the four-time member of Parliament said.
Earlier, a controversy was courted around Madhavi Latha after the AIMIM Chief alleged that BJP Hyderabad candidates' Latha gestured to shoot an arrow purportedly in the direction of a mosque.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Asaduddin Owaisi from AIMIM won the seat with a margin of 282,186 votes.
Asaduddin Owaisi was polled 517,471 votes with a vote share of 58.9 per cent and defeated Dr. Bhagavanth Rao from the BJP, who got 235,285 votes (26.80 per cent).
In the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, Owaisi won the seat and was polled 513,868 votes with a vote share of 52.88 per cent. BJP candidate Dr. Bhagavanth Rao got 311,414 votes (32.05 per cent) and was the runner-up. Asaduddin Owaisi defeated Dr Bhagavanth Rao by a margin of 202,454 votes.
Asaduddin has been the elected representative from Hyderabad since 2004. He was previously elected as an MLA twice in the erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh.
In the 2019 polls, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which was then christened as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), won nine seats, while the BJP bagged four. The Congress and the AIMIM brought up the rear with three and one seats, respectively.
—ANI