Hyderabad:
Days after her retort to an old provocative remark by AIMIM’s Akbaruddin Owaisi sparked a political row, BJP MP Navneet Rana has stoked another controversy in the middle of an intense election campaign – this time leading to a police case against her.
Ms Rana, while appealing to people not to vote for the Congress, was heard telling an election campaign in Telangana’s Shadnagar, “If you vote for Congress, that vote goes directly to Pakistan.”
A police case has been filed against the Amaravati candidate for allegedly trying to exert undue influence on voters or personation, disobedience to an order enforced by a public servant.
She had sparked a controversy earlier this week while campaigning for party colleague Madhavi Latha in Hyderabad – with a rebuttal to AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi’s infamous “if police are removed for 15 minutes…” remark.
“The younger brother said, ‘Remove police for 15 minutes so we can show what we can do’. I want to tell him, ‘It might take you 15 minutes… but it will only take us 15 seconds,” she had said, referring to the 2013 remark by Mr Owaisi.
The “Pakistan” narrative was part of her speech that day was well. She had said during the Hyderabad campaign that votes to the AIMIM and the Congress went “directly to Pakistan”.
“The kind of ‘AIMIM prem (love)’ and ‘Rahul prem’ Pakistan is showing… Just like Congress that governed country on signals from Pak… the same Pak is today saying they ‘love Congress and AIMIM’,” she had said. And, she declared, Madhavi Latha will “definitely stop Hyderabad from turning into Pakistan”.
