Hyderabad: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi called cricketer-turned-politician Mohammad Azharuddin ‘a failure’ as a politician and justified pitting a Muslim candidate against him in the Jubilee Hills constituency.
The Hyderabad MP made the remarks at India Today’s ‘Telangana Round Table’ programme.
The Hyderabad MP rejected claims of ‘personal animosity’ against the former cricketer as the reason behind fielding a candidate from Jubilee Hills for the first time.
“Azharuddin’s two younger brothers are my very good friends. Azharuddin’s late father was a great fan of Asaduddin Owaisi. In Jubilee Hills, we (AIMIM) have two municipal corporators. We have our own party strength over there,” he remarked.
Recalling Azharuddin’s stint as the Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad in 2009, Owaisi called him “a failure as a politician.”
“With cricket bat, he was fantastic. Those wristy shots were a delight to watch…,” he added.
He also rejected the claim that the AIMIM’s idea of entering the Jubilee Hills contest was to split Muslim votes. Jubilee Hills has 1,17,972 registered voters from the minority community.
With the AIMIM in the fray, the Jubilee Hills contest is witnessing a tight contest with the BRS, Congress, and the BJP nominating their candidates.
While the AIMIM has fielded the party’s corporator Mohammed Rashed Farazuddin, the BRS has fielded the incumbent MLA Maganti Gopinath once again. The BJP has nominated L Deepak Reddy from the constituency.
Telangana is going to the polls on November 30.
