HYDERABAD: Amid speculation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may campaign in the city for the GHMC polls, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday threw an open challenge to the PM and asked him to campaign in Old City.
Owaisi who was addressing a public rally at Akbarbagh division under the MAlakpet assembly constituency said, "You (BJP) bring Narendra Modi to Old City and campaign here. We will see what happens. I will give you an answer. Why are you bringing others, bring him! Organise his meeting here and we will see how many seats you will win over here."
Owaisi said that the BJP won 242 seats in the 2019 elections but in the recent Bihar elections it won 75 seats. "In which world are you living in? We won 5 seats by contesting in 20. God willing, the journey that MIM's elders had started will not end."
In a first, Owaisi also criticised CM K Chandrasekhar Rao for enforcing lockdown in Telangana and termed it as a 'big mistake'. "I had told that the lockdown was unconstitutional. CM KCR made a big mistake by enforcing lockdown. He should not have done it because under the Constitution, law and order is a State issue.
He continued, "I had told him not to do it. I told him that he should be the one to decide when to enforce lockdown. But you did, and 3 and a half months got destroyed. Incomes stopped and lakhs got unemployed, poor got destroyed."
Owaisi also criticised the BJP for comparing him with Mohammed Ali Jinnah. "Where have I become Jjinnah? Those who believed in Jinnah -- the razakars -- fled to Pakistan. We dismissed the two nation theory and chose Bharat as our nation. I will not leave India because by forefathers and Adam first stepped on the Earth over here."