2002 Gujarat riots paved way for Modi’s political success: Akbaruddin Owaisi

Hyderabad: Chandrayangutta All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) candidate Akbaruddin Owaisi, during an election campaign, alleged that if the perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat carnage were held accountable during the UPA regime, Narendra Modi may not have become India’s prime minister.

Akbaruddin was addressing a public gathering at Salam Chowk, Talabkatta under the Yakhutpura constituency here on Friday, November 17.

Stating that injustice served in multiple critical cases led to PM Modi’s political success, Akbaruddin Owaisi asserted that the criminals of the Gujarat riots as well as the Bilkis Banu rape case should have been punished. “But, they were set free,” he said.

It should be noted that the Gujarat riots took place in 2002 when the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was India’s prime minister while L K Advani was the Union home minister. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power in 2004, after two years.

Blazing guns at the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president Revanth Reddy, Akbaruddin brought up RSS in his speech. “Those who came from the RSS background are running the Congress today,” he mocked adding that Reddy was like a “Nizam, who stays on a hillock.”

Akbaruddin claimed that he has been a strong critic of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and had brought the Acts’ ill effects on the Muslim community multiple times in the Assembly.

Akbaruddin said his party has been involved in a raft of development activities and projects in the multiple constituencies in the city.

Akbaruddin Owaisi’s Chandrayangutta seat has been a stronghold of the AIMIM with the party winning from this segment in the last two state Assembly elections — in 2014 and 2018 and in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh since 1999.

Telangana goes to polls on November 30 while counting is scheduled for December 3.