Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency: BJP’s Madhavi Latha challenging AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi in his bastion

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AIMIM secured a decisive win in the Hyderabad constituency, underscoring its continued dominance, with the electorate’s verdict reaffirming Hyderabad’s loyalty to AIMIM, with current MP Asaduddin Owaisi emerging victorious against formidable opponents, Dr Bhagavanth Rao of the BJP and Feroz Khan of the Congress, among 15 candidates.

Comprising of seven Assembly segments (Malakpet, Karwan, Goshamahal, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura, and Bahadurpura), elections in Hyderabad are scheduled for the fourth phase on May 13th, 2024, with the counting of votes on June 4th, 2024. Here is all one needs to know.

Asaduddin Owaisi, AIMIM: 

Hyderabad MP and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi. (File)

Carrying forward the political lineage of his father and grandfather, Asaduddin Owasisi is the third national president of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and will once again represent the Hyderabad constituency for the forthcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In two of the previous four elections, Owaisi has secured more than 50% of the votes, demonstrating the trust that the Hyderabad electorate has placed in him for the past twenty years. A position he first assumed from his father in 2004, the 2004 Lok Sabha election saw Owaisi’s narrowest victory margin, where he garnered only 37.39% of the total votes.

However, since then, Owaisi’s political influence has only grown, with each election seeing him win by increasingly larger margins. In the 2019 election, Owaisi claimed 58.95% of the votes, outperforming the BJP’s Bhagavanth Rao by a margin of two lakh votes. Similarly, in the 2014 elections, Asaduddin Owaisi thrived again against Dr Bhagavanth Rao (BJP), with a margin of 2,02,454 votes, with Owaisi commanding a vote share of 53.71%, while Dr Bhagavanth Rao secured 30.99% of the electorate’s trust.

K. Madhavi Latha, BJP:

BJP’s Hyderabad candidate Kompella Madhavi Latha (File Photo)

Madhavi Latha, the head of Virinchi Hospitals in Hyderabad, was relatively unknown in political circles until her name appeared on the BJP’s candidate list for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections on March 2. Standing in opposition to Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, a four-term MP from Hyderabad, the Owaisi family has held for nearly four decades. Latha played a key role in the campaign against instant triple talaq, which was outlawed by Parliament in 2019. Her candidature is particularly noteworthy, as Owaisi has been a vocal critic of the law that banned the practice of instant triple talaq in 2019, describing it as an assault on Muslim identity and citizenship.