Owaisi urges voters to treat Telangana’s electoral roll revision as a ‘life and death’ issue

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi has urged voters in Telangana to take the upcoming Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls seriously and cooperate with Booth Level Officers. He also criticised restrictions on offering namaz on roads, calling for uniform standards.

Hyderabad: The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi asked the voters to treat the upcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a “life and death” issue and asked them to cooperate fully with Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during verification.

Addressing an Eid Milap program held at party headquarters Darussalam on Friday evening, the AIMIM president said the SIR exercise in Telangana will begin from June 25 and the BLO’s will visit the houses and hand over the enumerator form at voters’ residences or give it directly to voters.

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Asaduddin asked voters who cannot read to get the form checked by the local AIMIM party workers deployed as Booth Level Agents (BLA) or by any trusted person. He said that the AIMIM has appointed its party members and responsible workers as BLAs (Booth Level Agents). “I am appealing to all voters regarding the SIR starting in Telangana on June 25, I urge you all to take this very seriously, as it is a highly sensitive issue. I am not saying this to stir up emotions or to scare you, but it is certainly a matter of life and death for us,” he said.

Taking a dig at governments of various States who imposed a ban on offering namaz on roads, Asaduddin argued that if offering namaz on roads is unacceptable, the same standard must apply to street celebrations of every religion. He alleged attempts to marginalise Muslims and reduce them to “second-class citizens”.

“If offering namaz on roads is wrong, then festivals of every religion on roads are also incorrect. If you say meat shops should be closed during someone’s festival, then all liquor shops should be closed for 30 days during Ramzan,” he said.

He asked why there are no objections to religious yatras from Uttarakhand to Delhi when roads are allegedly blocked.