“Flowers for Kanwariyas, Bulldozers for Us”: Owaisi slams the BJP-led govt that previously accused his politics to be “divisive”
On Wednesday, AIMIM Chief and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi, questioned the UP-Government’s actions of showering the Kanwar Yatris with flower petals. He called out the BJP-led Government’s blatant religious discrimination wherein there is such a disparity in the gestures towards Hindus and Muslims in this country.
The communities are treated such that Indian Hindus are received with aerial flower showers while Indian Muslims have had to suffer through the demolition of their homes.
“The UP government is using taxpayers’ money to shower flower petals on kanwariyas from a helicopter and policemen are massaging the foot of the pilgrims. We are just saying, show some mercy on us too, treat us equally. If you are showering flowers on them, at least don’t raze our homes.
Treat everybody equally, what happened to ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vishwas’?” he said in his statement to media outlets outside the Parliament. Owaisi further questioned why, under a “democratic nation,” meat shops had to close during the Kanwar Yatra.
Owaisi’s remarks come in retaliation to the recently viral visuals which displayed the Meerut’s police chief and district magistrate showering flower petals on Kanwariyas. Furthermore, in Hapur, a police inspector can be seen on camera applying pain-relief spray on the legs of a Kanwariya.
“Good that you are massaging their feet, but then you take a Muslim youth in Saharanpur and beat him. Do not discriminate. The Constitution does not allow it,” Owaisi further states.
Asked if he was referring to the row over namaz near Lucknow’s Lulu Mall, particularly, Owaisi replied, “We want to know, the ones who read namaz there, which God were they praying to by facing that direction? And they finished namaz in 18 seconds!”.
Hitting back at the BJP’s charge that his politics is “divisive”, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief said his politics is for equality.
Earlier, on Tuesday, the Hyderabad MP shared news reports on kanwariyas on his Twitter handle and asked, “Traffic diversion for one religion and bulldozer action for another.” In his tweet, he mentioned that Muslims had to face bullets, lynching and bulldozing of their houses and many more things.
“Why hate one and love the other? Why divert traffic for one religion and bulldoze for another?” he further questions the prominent distinction between the communities.
BJP MP, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, has attacked Owaisi for criticizing the Yogi Government’s decision to receive the Kanwariyas in a particular manner, while simultaneously labelling the Muslim community as “terrorists” by stating, “If not on kanwariyas then should one shower flowers on terrorists?”
