Let AIMIM ask for eviction of Rohingyas, I'll act, says Union Home Minister Amit Shah

Hyderabad has to be freed from the “Nizami culture” to make it a democratically governed, truly developed, world-class IT hub, said BJP leader Amit Shah on Sunday, while alleging the AIMIM-TRS combine in the GHMC as becoming an impediment to the city's development.

The Union Home Minister was the last of the BJP top guns who blazed against the K Chandrasekhar Rao government, leading a roadshow in the city on the final day of campaigning for the Hyderabad corporation elections on Tuesday.

The electioneering for the city polls saw an aggressive BJP taking on the TRS-AIMIM, making an unprecedented pitch to the voters along communal lines.

While Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay said they would launch “surgical strikes” on the old city to flush out the Rohingyas, illegal immigrants; UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath backed Hyderabad's name change to Bhagyanagar. BJP also alleged that Rohingya refugees have been made voters in the old city.

The ruling TRS combated the onslaught by appealing to electors to choose between a peaceful, prosperous city or one suffering in communal strife.

On Sunday, Shah replied, “We won't appease nor discriminate against anyone. Sab-ka saath, sab-ki vikas is our motto.”

Shah challenged the AIMIM to write to the centre for the eviction of the Rohingyas, illegal Bangladeshis from the old city so that he can act.

“The nation knows who takes their side when we debate in Parliament to deport them. They cry and object,” Shah said in reaction to AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi's remarks that “what was the Home minister doing if there are 40,000 Rohingyas in the city as alleged by the BJP.”

Shah also dared the TRS-AIMIM to make their alliance public. “We have no problem with your connection with AIMIM, why keep it a secret?”

With the BJP's focus on consolidating Hindu votes, the TRS has distanced itself from the AIMIM.  

“And where was KCR when Hyderabad was flooded? He did not visit the affected areas when the people were in distress. This is a big question from Hyderabadis which has to be answered by the CM,” Shah said while addressing reporters at the BJP office.

Shah who did not make any speeches in his roadshow at Warasiguda in Secunderabad told reporters that the “immense public support witnessed shows BJP is fighting not to increase its seats but will occupy the Mayor seat.”

“We do not see an election as small or big. The party calling this Gali ka chunav does not bother to keep the bylanes clean,” Shah said in reference to TRS minister KT Rama Rao's potshots that “BJP has brought Delhi leaders for galli elections.”

When asked about KCR's plans to assemble anti-BJP parties one plank and Delhi ideas, Shah, considered the saffron party's chief election strategist, said that KCR is free to roam across the country.

“We know what happened to his such efforts in 2019,” Shah said in reference to KCR's non-starter federal front idea.

BJP chief JP Nadda and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath were in Hyderabad before Shah.

The BJP leaders accused chief minister Rao of running a corrupt, family dominated government and denying Telangana people benefits of the Narendra Modi government schemes.