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'BJP's team B': Telangana Cong chief's war of words with Asaduddin Owaisi continues
On Monday, Owaisi had accused Telangana Congress Chief Revanth Reddy of doing "dog whistle politics" targeting the minority class.
Telangana Congress chief Revanth Reddy on Tuesday responded to the criticism by All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi by calling him the “B team” of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Everybody knows who he is working for...Since Congress won in Karnataka, Asaduddin Owaisi and KCR are sad which means they made efforts for BJP to win,” the Congress chief told ANI. Catch the full coverage of the Telangana elections.
Reddy further challenged Owaisi and his party to help them defeat the BJP in the Goshamahal Assembly Constituency.
"That's the reason why you don't need to discuss BJP's Team B and if you have the daring then help in defeating BJP in Goshamahal Assembly Constituency then people will get to know your real intention," Reddy was quoted as saying by the news agency.
Owaisi and Reddy have lately been engaged in a war of words during the campaign for the coming Assembly elections in Telangana.
On Monday, Owaisi had accused Reddy of doing "dog whistle politics" targeting the minority class. Owaisi had said that Reddy had nothing substantial to criticize and was resorting to personal attacks.
"You (Revanth Reddy) don't have anything to criticise against us. You speak about our clothes and beards and attack us. It is called dog whistle politics. You are an RSS puppet. There is no difference between the BJP and the Congress," Asaduddin Owaisi said at a public rally in Hyderabad.
The verbal spat started when Reddy took a swipe at Owaisi, alleging that the AIMIM leader “wears a khaki knicker under his sherwani”. Both Congress and AIMIM have been trying to label each other as the ‘B’ team of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Even cutouts depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi controlling Owaisi and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao were put up in Hyderabad last week.
"Telangana PCC chief started as an RSS member wearing a chaddi and then went to ABVP, then joined Telugu Desam and now comes to Congress. Someone said it right that Congress's Gandhi Bhavan is captured by Mohan Bhagwat and will run Congress however he wants," the AIMIM chief said.
The ruling BRS had also stepped up its attack on Congress, with the party's working president and minister K T Rama Rao accusing the grand old party of using minority communities as a vote bank.
Telangana will undergo assembly elections on November 30. The counting of votes, along with those of four other poll-bound states, has been scheduled for December 3.
