The All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday challenged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to contest the Lok Sabha election from Hyderabad instead of Kerala’s Wayanad.

Addressing a public meeting in his parliamentary constituency, Hyderabad, Owaisi targeted the Congress party over the demolition of Babri Masjid under its regime in 1992.

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“I am challenging your leader (Rahul Gandhi) to contest elections from Hyderabad and not Wayanad. You keep giving big statements, come to the ground and fight against me. People from Congress will say a lot of things, but I am ready…Babri Masjid and Secretariat’s mosque were demolished under the Congress regime…” Owaisi was quoted as saying by ANI.

Owaisi challenged Rahul Gandhi hours after the Congress leader asserted that his party is certainly winning Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, probably winning Telangana, and there is a “very close” contest in Rajasthan which the party believes it will emerge victorious in.

The Congress and AIMIM are at loggerheads in Telangana as both parties are slugging it out to reach the helm in the upcoming state’s Assembly elections, which are scheduled to be held later this year.

Earlier this month, Rahul Gandhi, while speaking at Vijayabheri Sabha in Telangana’s Tukkuguda, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and AIMIM are working in unison in Telangana and that his party is fighting against this trio.

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Meanwhile, speaking on the controversy around BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri’s communal slurs hurled at BSP lawmaker Danish Ali, Owaisi said the day is not far “when there will be a mob lynching of a Muslim in the Parliament of the country”.

“Where is your ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas? The Prime Minister of this country will not speak a word,” Owaisi said.

He added, “The person who spoke nonsense about Muslim MP in the Parliament had also stood in front of me. I told him ‘baith…baith jaa meri jubaan ka muqabla nahi kar sakta’ (sit down, you can’t argue with me)”.

Bidhuri’s derogatory remarks targeting Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member Danish Ali during a discussion on the success of Chandrayaan-3 in the Lok Sabha on Thursday last week triggered a furore, with opposition leaders calling for stringent action against the BJP MP.

(With inputs from ANI)