Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and MP from Hyderabad, Asaduddin Owaisi, today asked his party to be ready for an early Lok Sabha election and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dissolve parliament and face the people.

“His four-year rule has not given anything except disappointment and the people are also waiting keenly for the elections to teach him and his party a lesson,” Owaisi told a meeting marking the 60th anniversary of the formation of the AIMIM, also known as MIM.

Greeting the Hindu community on the occasion of the Holi festival, Owaisi said that all attempts to brand his party as anti-Hindu had failed and that every community stood with it taking into account its hard work and honesty. “Sangh Parivar [the ruling BJP’s ideological fountainhead] should know that saffron alone is not the colour of India. The beauty of India is that it emerges from the merger of all colours, be it saffron, green, white or black. All colours belong to India,” he said.

After hoisting the AIMIM flag at the party headquarters Darussalam in Hyderabad on Friday, Asaduddin said that the people of Telangana will wipe out the BJP and the Congress in the next elections. “I challenge the two parties to pick up the strongest candidates, not jokers, to fight from Hyderabad. Let the Prime Minister address ten meetings in the city. Still Hindus, Muslims, Dalits and Christians will ensure MIM’s victory with a margin of more than two lakhs [200,000],” he said.

He also vowed to ensure that the BJP was defeated in the Secundrabad Lok Sabha constituency and the five assembly seats it covered. Praising Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government in the state for its good work and responsive approach, Owaisi said that the BJP and Congress don’t have any future in Telangana.

Defending the MIM’s decision to contest elections in other states, he said contesting elections and participating in the democratic process was the right given by the constitution and it was the only way in which Muslims could strive to secure their fundamental rights in the country.

Referring to the Congress criticism, he said, “they ask me why I am contesting elections? What else should I do? This is the only thing I can do.”

Tracing the 60-year journey of the AIMIM, which was revived as a political outfit by his grandfather Abdul Wahed Owaisi on March 2, 1958, amid turbulent times after the police action in Hyderabad, Asaduddin Owaisi said that the biggest contribution of the AIMIM was to strengthen the confidence of the people in democracy and the constitution of India.

“We will have to take part in politics and contest elections and strengthen the organisation,” he said while pointing out that, apart from having an influential role in Telangana, the party had members in the Maharashtra assembly and the civic bodies and also had a presence in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

He attributed the success of MIM to the sincerity, commitment and accessibility to the people of its leaders and workers 24/7. “MIM does not believe in emotional slogans but it has always worked to serve the people. It has always been the party of the poor, the rickshaw pullers, hawkers and push cart vendors.”

Calling on the party leaders and workers to always be on the side of the people, he said that apart from being a political party, the MIM had made massive contributions to the educational upliftment of the people through a network of educational institutions. He recalled that after Abdul Wahed had revived the MIM, he was arrested and imprisoned for 11 months and his family had to suffer immensely. “But he boldly faced the situation and worked hard to give confidence and courage to the Muslims in accordance with the constitution.”

Rejecting the charge that the MIM was a party derived from the Razakar militia, Owaisi said, “MIM is the party of nationalists and patriots who embody the spirit of secularism, pluralism and knows how to fulfil its reponsibility. Jinnah was asked to go to Pakistan. Razakars went to Pakistan but all the nationalist Muslims stayed back,” he said. He lashed out at the Congress party, calling it the “Janeudhari party” (driven by class compulsions) and asked why its Muslim members of parliament remained silent when Sharia came under attack in parliament.

“They also remained silent when Babri Masjid was demolished,” Owaisi charged.

He said that the Congress was in great pain because MIM had succeeded in taking back the building of Darussalam after ten years of legal battles against its government in the state in 1970. “Indira Gandhi had also come here to seek votes,” he reminded the Congress leaders.

He urged his part workers to increase the MIM’s mass apeal and make it stronger so that it could continue to fight for the political and constitutional rights of the ordinary people.

Referring to the humongous bank fraud involving Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, he asked the prime minister to explain what happened to his promise of ‘Na Khaoonga, Na Khane doonga’ (neither will I take bribe, nor will I allow others to do it).

He also demanded that the prime minister explain the threats of his party leaders and right wing outfits sympathetic to the BJP to send Muslims to Pakistan if they raised their voice against killings and lynchings. “I am asking, they did not send people who committed a fraud on the country and looted the public money from the banks.”