HYDERABAD: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Wednesday said that the recent statement of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on non-deployment of officers from Yadav and Muslim communities during the upcoming bypolls to 10 Assembly constituencies in his state shows that he doesn’t want free and fair elections.
Speaking to the media here, Owaisi asserted that conducting the elections is the responsibility of the Elections Commission of India (ECI). He asked whether the ECI will follow the diktat of the UP CM and decided against deploying officials from Yadav and Muslim communities for poll duty.
“UP CM wants to tell the ECI that Article 324 does not matter. No politician, PM or CM can decide about the deployment of officers during the elections as it is the responsibility of the ECI,” he said.
The parliamentarian from Hyderabad appealed to the ECI to prove Adityanath wrong and ensure free and fair elections.
“A government officer represents the government. He doesn’t represent any religion or caste. UP CM sees them from the communal lens. He has been behaving like that. It shows how much he hates these communities,” Owaisi remarked.
Speaking about the recent row of ascertaining religious identity of an ancient monument in Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha, Owaisi claimed that the BJP government transferred the District Collector (Buddesh Kumar Vaid) for not allowing the Hindu community to worship in a mosque. However, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister’s office reportedly denied that the transfer of the Vaid had anything to do with the controversy, claiming that he was among the 26 IAS officers who were transferred.
Powers given to collectors in Waqf Bill absolutely wrong
“In the present Waqf Bill, a collector has been given the power to decide whether a place of worship or a property belongs to Waqf or not. When you are transferring the Collector because he did listen to the Sangh Parivar, I apprehend that if this Bill becomes law, then Collectors everywhere will not recognise a mosque and declare it as a government property by demolishing it or stopping people from offering namaz there,” the AIMIM leader explained.
Reiterating that the powers provided to collectors in the Waqf Bill are absolutely wrong, Owaisi added that an example of it was seen in the Vidisha incident.
As per reports, the row was triggered after the local Hindu community demanded permission to worship at the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected Bijamandal mosque on the Naga Panchami festival on August 9. But the Collector denied the request, citing the Gazette notification of 1951, produced by the ASI, claiming that the historical monument is the Bijamandal mosque.