© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
AFTER THE BJP, the Congress too appears to be veering towards a first-time woman candidate to take on AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi from the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, which he has been winning since 2004. The parties believe their candidates can seize on the “anti-incumbency” against the MP and pose a challenge.
Sources in the Congress said that the party has finalised the name of Supreme Court lawyer Shahnaz Tabassum, the wife of Telangana Waqf Board CEO Syed Khaja Moinuddin, from the seat. The BJP earlier announced K Madhavi Latha, the chairperson of Virinchi Hospitals in the city, as its candidate.
Owaisi is one of the toughest contestants to beat in this Lok Sabha elections, given his influence in the area. In the 2019 polls, he had defeated the BJP’s Bhagavanth Rao Pawar by a massive margin of 2.82 lakh votes.
Telangana Congress leaders say Tabassum can reach out to “voters looking for a change”. She is also the founder and national president of the All India Azad Congress Party, an unregistered political party that has not contested polls so far.
The BJP is counting on Latha, 49, drawing support as she is a local, having grown up in the Yakutpura area of Hyderabad and her work among the people there, including the Muslim community. Associated with the RSS for a while, Latha has campaigned extensively in the area against triple talaq. Her speeches on the subject, along with interviews on alleged “mistreatment of children in madrasas” and “encroachment of temples”, are popular on social media.
Party sources said that “her image as a staunch Hindu woman” could help her in the Hindu pockets of the Muslim-dominated constituency. The party also thinks she would be able to draw support from women “who are looking for an alternative to the AIMIM” and also present a change from party veteran Bhagvanth Rao, who was fielded from the constituency in 2019 and 2014.
Sources said her proximity to senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, the head of the Sangh’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch, was instrumental in her being picked by the BJP as its candidate.
Speaking to The Indian Express earlier, Latha said: “The BJP would not have picked me at all if Hindu-Muslim was my poll issue. The party knows I work with a lot of Muslims and I am compassionate towards them. I have been a fierce critic of triple talaq. If I can go on a hunger strike for a temple, I will do the same for a Muslim woman,” she says.
An AIMIM fortress
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, with an estimated 60% population, was represented by AIMIM founder and Owasi’s father Salahuddin from 1984 to 2004, after which Owaisi has been its MP.
Owaisi has also retained his large victory margins in the seat — including 2.02 lakh votes in his first election from the seat in 2004, and 1.13 lakh votes in 2009, when his rival was Zahid Ali Khan, the editor of popular Urdu news daily Siasat, fielded by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). In 2014, Owaisi defeated the BJP’s Pawar by 2.02 lakh votes, and further increased his margin against him in 2019.
Seven of the eight Assembly segments that constitute the Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat were won by the AIMIM in last year’s Assembly polls, with the only seat not its kitty being Goshamahal, won by the BJP. Among the seven Assembly segments it won, the AIMIM’s highest victory margin (81,660 votes) was in Chandrayangutta, a seat represented by Owaisi’s brother Akbaruddin since 1999.
The party’s grip is seen as unwavering in Charminar and other seats in Hyderabad’s Old City — housing monuments from the Qutb Shahi and Asif Jahi era — since the 1967 Assembly polls, where it first backed Independent candidates before fielding own nominees. In 1994, Owaisi made his electoral debut by winning the Charminar Assembly seat.
