NEW DELHI: Branding the Congress and NCP as “Chaudharis” or self-appointed guardians of secularism, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi has said the way both parties ganged up with the BJP to get his MLA Waris Pathan suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for not chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ has “exposed” them.

Owaisi had kicked up a massive controversy after he, in order to counter RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, said that he would not chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’. Predictably, no political party came out in support of the Hyderabad MP, fearing a backlash.

In an interview to The Sunday Standard, Owaisi questioned whether the Congress MLAs were not listening to their own “big” leaders in Delhi, including vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

“On the one hand you have Rahul Gandhi going to JNU and expressing solidarity with the students there and on the other you have the party MLAs from states doing all this,” he said, adding, “This exposes the hypocrisy of all parties.”

“What is the image that is being projected… that you cannot manage your own party MLAs in the Assemblies?”

Owaisi said this also shows how the minorities and Dalits are being treated by political parties across the country.

Though he refused to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, Owaisi, however, ended his speech in the Lok Sabha earlier last week with a flourishing ‘Jai Hind’, which he said was not a placatory gesture at all.

Owaisi, who is known to make provocative speeches, said he was open to chanting ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ as a reaffirmation to the popular slogans which were used during the struggle for independence.

“I am not against any slogans, but the criteria which are being laid down are not right,” he said. Owaisi said that his refusal to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ stemmed from the “binaries” which are being drawn in the debate. “I am against this kind of binary that if you don’t say this then you would be shot or would have to go to Pakistan.”

“There is no fundamental law which makes it compulsory to chant such a slogan. We have the freedom of speech,” Owaisi said.

According to Owaisi, the entire anti-national versus national debate was a ploy by the NDA government to divert attention from key issues. He said at the end of the day, people want growth, water and lessening in prices of essential commodities.