MIM to Play Mind Game With Rival Parties

 It will be a mind game that the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) plans to play with its opponents during the GHMC elections. The party has decided to nail the BJP and the Congress with the  comments made by their own leaders.

The remarks reportedly made by Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari, questioning the patriotism of Hyderabadis have come in handy for the Majlis. “You cannot cast aspersions on the people of Hyderabad just like that. If Gadkari has any evidence of ‘anti-national’ activities here, he ought to inform the government,” said MIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi.

He asked the Union minister to tender an apology immediately for his sweeping remarks or be prepared to pay a heavy price in the elections here. “The BJP has not learnt a lesson from its Bihar poll debacle. Its leaders had talked about firecrackers bursting in Pakistan if BJP lost elections in Bihar and now the same analogy was



being given in Hyderabad. The party can’t appropriate intellectual rights of secularism and nationalism. We will place all this before people,” he added.

The Majlis also sees an advantage in Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir’s recent visit to the house of Mohammed Pehalwan at Barkas in the old city and  sympathising with the jailed strongman of Barkas who was allegedly involved in the attack on Majlis legislator and Asaduddin’s brother Akbaruddin Owaisi. Shabbir himself  was a victim of Maoist violence and he should know better, he quipped.

There is a huge crowd of ticket aspirants hanging out at the Majlis headquarters at Darussalam to catch the eye of the Owaisi brothers. 

Who is their main opponent? “We respect all our opponents and will defeat them. Majlis  will emerge victorious and keep the city safe from BJP’s communalism” is all that the Hyderabad MP would say. He also refuses to comment on poll alliance, if any, with TRS.