Who is Madhavi Latha, the BJP’s Hyderabad candidate challenging Asaduddin Owaisi and praised by PM Modi?

The show, Prime Minister Modi said, was exceptional and lauded Madhavi for making solid points with logic and passion. “Madhavi Latha Ji, your ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ episode is exceptional. You’ve made very solid points and also done so with logic and passion. My best wishes to you,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X.

Centre has provided her ‘Y+’ category security of CRPF to Latha, news agency ANI said quoting sources.

Challenging Owaisi in his bastion

Madhavi Latha was not known much in political circles until March 2, when her name featured in the BJP’s candidate list for upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024.

Latha, 49, is contesting against All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen and four-time member of parliament (MP) Asaduddin Owaisi from Hyderabad. The Owaisi family has represented the seat for about four decades. 

Also Read: Was Asaduddin Owaisi’s grandfather a Hindu Brahmin? AIMIM chief reacts to social media claim

Prior to Asaduddin, who won the seat for the first time in 2004, Hyderabad was represented in the Lok Sabha by his father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi from 1984. Apart from Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat, all assembly seats of Hyderabad, except Goshamahal, are held by the AIMIM.

Triple Talaq activist, Bharatanatyam Dancer

Latha is a cultural activist with a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from Nizam College and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Osmania University. 

Latha was at the fore front of campaign against instant triple talaq that was criminalised by Parliament in 2019. Her candidature assumes significance since Owaisi has been one of the critical voices against the law that criminalised the practice of instant triple talaq in 2019 and had called it a “part of many of the attacks on Muslim identity and citizenship.”

Apart from her activism, Latha is an entrepreneur, an NCC cadet, and a professional Bharatanatyam dancer. She is the chairperson of the Hyderabad-based Virinchi Hospitals. Latha had called her candidature an acknowledgement of her near-two-decades long charity work.

Also Read: BJP’s Madhavi Latha mocks LS rival Asadduddin Owaisi, calls him friend of ‘ISIS people’: ‘Look at the level of his…’

Last Sunday, Latha mocked Owaisi, after he claimed to have received death threats and said that the Hyderabad MP was ‘friends with ISIS.’

“Who is giving him (Asaduddin Owaisi) death threats?. Look at the level of his friendships. He is friends with people from ISIS,…He says that he has a stronghold here and then says that he is receiving death threats,” Latha told news agency ANI.

Earlier, Owaisi had said that he had received threats on social media posts after his meeting with the family members of deceased gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari. He had met Ansari’s family after the gangster-turned-politician’s death due to cardiac arrest on March 28.

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Published: 08 Apr 2024, 08:54 AM IST