BJP MP and the party's youth wing president Tejasvi Surya on Monday hit out at the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in Hyderabad, alleging that the party leadership indulged in promoting family rule, ignoring the people. He also lambasted the AIMIM, describing its president Asaduddin Owaisi as the new ''avatar'' of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections is nationally important because a vote for (Asaduddin) Owaisi in Hyderabad would make him stronger in Bihar, UP, Maharashtra and others, he claimed.
"And what does Owaisi mean? Who is Owaisi? Owaisi is Mohammed Ali Jinnah's new avatar," he said, adding that every single vote for BJP is a vote for Bharat and Hindutva and will make the country much stronger.
"A vote for Owaisi will mean a vote against India. A vote for Owaisi is a defeat of all good things that India stands for. We will not let this Islamization happen. Yuva Morcha Telangana, this is our 'sankalp' (resolve)," he said.
Referring to certain alleged comments of AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi earlier, he said this is not the age of the Nizams but that of ''Hindu hriday samrat'' Narendra Modi. TRS and AIMIM are two faces of the same coin, he claimed.
"Government is not working for the common people of Telangana...government is working only for one family of Telangana," he said. Taking a jab at the TRS, he said democracy's definition has changed in Telangana. "...What is going on in Telangana and Hyderabad? Government and party, of the family, by the family, for the family," he said.
Surya, who was speaking after launching a ''Change Hyderabad'' campaign of BJP for the December 1 civic polls in Hyderabad, alleged that the TRS, as also the AIMIM, have made political parties into private companies.
Saying that Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first Prime Minister to initiate political discourse on urban development, he said it was Narendra Modi, after Vajpayee, who launched 100 smart cities programme and the Amrut mission, giving importance to improvement of cities.
The BJP Yuva Morcha activists should ask chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao as to what happened to the funds allocated to Hyderabad by the NDA government under the smart cities programme, he said.
The funds allocated by the NDA government "went straight into the pockets of the contractors who are supporters of KCR," he alleged. The cities across the country where BJP is in power have witnessed rapid development, Surya said.
Responding to Surya's comments, TRS MP Banda Prakash said that the BJP was taking the name of AIMIM for its own benefit. "Not accusing us, they should say what the Union government wants to do," the TRS leader said.
The TRS is contesting in all the 150 wards of GHMC and the party has made it clear that it does not have any alliance with the AIMIM, Prakash added. Owaisi and his AIMIM are yet to respond to the comments.
The BJP has upped the ante against AIMIM stating that a vote for the TRS is a vote for AIMIM, which has prompted Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to hit back and urge citizens to vote for a 'secular Hyderabad' over one of 'communal bigotry.'
Stating that there are intellectuals, students, IT professionals and employees among the voters who should decide the future of Hyderabad, KCR on Monday said, "We have to preserve peace and harmony. It is in your hands to decide what kind of Hyderabad you want. Whether you want the existing Hyderabad which is inclusive and co-existential or something else."