“Once a BJP candidate wins the post of mayor in these elections, there will be a surgical strike in patha basti (Old City). It is the responsibility of the BJP to expel these Rohingya and filthy children from Pakistan,” said the BJP chief of Telangana, Bandi Sanjay. to the ‘communal outcry’ before the local Hyderabad body polls. It was part of a series of comments that have fully communicated the GHMC poll campaign.
Earlier, Bandi Sanjay had accused CM KCR of having ties to terrorists and called him not a “true Hindu”. Another BJP leader, Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind, had said which will crush the Owaisi brothers under their shoes once the BJP forms the government. In another statement, he said that the Kalvakuntla family (KCR) has lost the ‘masculinity’ to stop the “misdeeds” of Asasuddin Owaisi led All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM)
TRS Acting Chairman KTR lashed out at BJP for the surgical strike comments calling them “divisive” and attempts to break the peace in the city. Telangana’s Chief Minister KCR, in a high-level law and order review meeting with state police officials, said that certain lawless forces are trying to create communal clashes and tensions in the state out of desperation and the disappointment.
CM KCR said: “During GHMC polls, certain leaders are trying to get political mileage through various conspiracies. At first, they used social media to spread fake news. They tried to mislead people with transformed photos. Later they allowed themselves to provocation through expressions “.
Those who have closely watched Hyderabad politics are of the opinion that today’s highly charged landscape, while not new to the city’s political landscape, has escalated to a dangerous new level.
MIM Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) and senior journalist Syed Aminul Jafri, who has worked in Hyderabad for over 40 years attending different elections, from local bodies to parliament, said that this time BJP is completely committed to hatred and the hindutva. He said that “they also used to talk about infrastructure, civic issues as well, but this kind of aggressive plate on Hindutva polarization has never happened.”
Jafri said the BJP is trying to “communalize itself just to get some seats.” Initially, it was the BJP that started making community speeches, even the acting president of TRS, KTR, questioned Bandi Sanjay about his motive for going to a temple near Charminar in the middle of the elections, although there are several other temples in the city.
Mir Ayoob Ali Khan, senior journalist and editor of Siasat.com said: “In this GHMC election, BJP is trying to generate heat in the area using communal language and, incidentally, Majlis (MIM) is not responding, which in itself is a very good sign. “
Khan, however, felt that only a section of the BJP leaders are displaying this belligerent behavior, not all. Khan, when asked if this dangerous trend to communalize municipal corporation elections would permanently alter political discourse in the city, said that “any attempt to bring communal division by any party in the state will not succeed.”
In the recent past, MIM leaders Akbaruddin Owasi and his late father Salahuddin Owasi have also been accused of making hate speech. But this time, many observers see a very restrained MIM despite multiple provocations from the BJP, without responding in the same way.
Sangishetty Srinivas, a senior journalist and socio-cultural historian, said that the kind of campaign the Hyderabad elections are witnessing is just one part of the BJP’s attempt to make inroads into South India.
Sangishetty observed: “Perhaps the BJP is thinking that Hyderabad can be an instrument to bridge the political chasm of southern and northern India. As they make a foray to expand in the south, not only language, but even many gestures have a community charge “.
Observers also point to a subtle shift in the BJP’s state leadership and a surge in parliamentary elections with four seats also giving a boost.
However, while the BJP seems to be making more noise during the campaign by targeting the MIM primarily, the fact that MIM is not even contesting all the seats in Hyderabad is significant. The TRS also appears to be mostly in a reactionary mode, as it struggles not to respond to communal accusations, but at the same time, it focuses disproportionately on a party with the least grassroots presence in Hyderabad.
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