HYDERABAD: Playing on the raw emotions of the people, political leaders, for the second day on the trot, made communally sensitive statements, sending the political temperatures soaring ahead of the GHMC election.
On Wednesday, BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar gave a scathing reply to AIMIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, who had challenged the State government of having the guts to pull down the memorials of former Prime Minister late PV Narasimha Rao and former Chief Minister late NT Rama Rao on Necklace Road. Sanjay Kumar said if these memorials are demolished, BJP workers will pull down Darussalam, the MIM headquarters at Aghapura in Old City. Not to be outdone, TRS working president KT Rama Rao also jumped into the fray, slamming the AIMIM leader.
“Just a while ago, Akbaruddin Owaisi had demanded that NTR Ghat and PV Narasimha Rao memorial be demolished. Is it your ancestral property? If you demolish PV Narasimha Rao and NTR’s statues or their memorials, within two hours, if necessary, BJP workers will demolish your Darussalam. Do you have the guts to demolish the memorial of PV Narasimha Rao, who strove to develop Hindu dharma. Do you have the courage to demolish the NTR statue?” Sanjay Kumar asked.
Trouble started when Akbaruddin Owaisi taunted the TRS government about targeting the underprivileged, while allowing encroachments on water bodies. He asked it to, instead, demolish PV Ghat and NTR Ghat which he termed as encroachments on the Hussainsagar. Speaking at a rally in Erragadda, he said, “Hussainsagar was once spread across 4,700 acres. Today, the area has shrunk to 700 acres. What happened to the remaining 4,000 acres? It went in Necklace Road, to make the samadhis of Narasimha Rao and NTR.”
As the slugfest raged on, KTR jumped in, extolling the virtues of the two leaders whose memorials Akbaruddin wanted demolished. In two tweets, the MAUD Minister said: “I condemn the statement of Akbaruddin on PV Narasimha Rao and NT Rama Rao. They were unwarranted as they were in the nature of belittling two great personalities. Both of them had enhanced the respect for Telugu people. One leader served as Prime Minister, while the other as the Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh. Any comments to lower their stature or image are most inappropriate. There is no room for such comments in a democracy.”
Case against Akbar in trial stage
A case registered against MIM MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi for his hate speech in 2012 is at a trial stage in the Nampally special court which is hearing cases against MPs and MLAs. The leader was in the news in 2013 when he made incendiary comments on Hindus at a public meeting held near Hashmi Masjid on Quilla Road in Nizamabad on December 8, 2012. Another case which was also registered against the MLA under various sections of the IPC for making a hate speech at the Government Junior College grounds in Nirmal on December 23, 2012, is pending before the trial court at Nirmal. The petitioners, who had filed these cases, have alleged that the hate speeches were intended to promote enmity between religions, create disturbance in the society and abet waging a war against the government and the State.