HYDERABAD: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi slammed BJP leader and Union Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur for the “Aurangzeb school” remark he made during his recent visit to Hyderabad and termed it as the “mentality of upper caste arrogance”.
Thakur, who was campaigning for BJP’s Hyderabad candidate Madhavi Latha, had alleged that Owaisi and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi belong to “Aurangzeb school of thought, with democracy on their lips but Shariah in their hearts”.
The AIMIM chief, who was addressing a rally in Yakutpura on Saturday night, said that the country originally belonged to Dalits and Adivasis. “The first people who arrived in the country were Adivasis and then Dravidians. Upper castes are Aryans who came from Iran and the Steppe in today’s Russia. Where have you come from?” Owaisi asked.
The four-time legislator from Hyderabad also said: “I have no love for any of the Mughal kings. If I had been present during their era, I would have probably dissented against them. But he (Thakur) related me to Aurangzeb. None of the Mughal rulers went on the Haj pilgrimage. They went only to Ajmer dargah. Whatever they earned, they spent it here. But even after several centuries, they (BJP) associate us with Aurangzeb and defame us, indicating that we are second-class citizens.”
‘BJP candidate will lose her deposit’
Owaisi also predicted that the BJP candidate, who is making her electoral debut, will lose her deposit. He also responded to the controversy that erupted over comments he made at a beef shop in Hyderabad recently. Greeting the shop owner, he had said: “Rehan beef shop zindabad. Kaise ho bhai? Salaam alaikum. Kaat te raho (Long live Rehan beef shop. How are you brother? Salaam alaikum. Keep butchering).”
Owaisi slammed the BJP for criticising him. “Why did the BJP accept Rs 10 crore from the beef exporting companies through electoral bonds?” he asked.
Owaisi objects to NCERT listing Khomeini among ‘most evil persons’
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday expressed solidarity with the Shia community over the NCERT including Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the list of “most evil persons” in the Class 6 textbook. Addressing a gathering during his campaign in Malakpet, he said: “In the NCERT book (Class 6), Ayatollah Khomeini’s name has been added to the list of most evil people in the world, along with Genghis Khan, Japan’s emperor and North Korean dictator. The book says that he used to kill those people who did not believe in Allah. Tell me to what extent this hate (against Muslims) will go. We have hundreds of years of relations with Iran as we used to buy oil from them. But now we have stopped it. I want to know what the Muslim Rashtriya Manch office-bearers are you doing. Will you accept this? They (BJP) have also removed the name of India’s first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, from Class 11 textbook.”