BJP suspends youth wing leader who announced reward for 'cutting Owaisi's tongue'

The Bharatiya Janata Party has suspended its Kashi unit’s youth wing vice president Shyam Prakash Dwivedi from its primary membership for allegedly announcing a reward of Rs 1 crore for chopping off the tongue of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi who refused to say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

Dwivedi was also removed from his post of Bharatiya Yuva Morcha of Kashi unit.

"On the direction of party’s state leadership, Kashi region president Laxman Acharya has removed Shyam Prakash Dwivedi from the post of vice-president of Kashi unit’s Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha with immediate effect and also suspended his primary membership of the party here yesterday for allegedly making a controversial remark," said Sanjay Bhardwaj, BJP's eastern Uttar Pradesh media in-charge.

Dwivedi, son of BJP’s district unit president of Allahabad Ramraksha Dwivedi, had reportedly announced a reward of Rs 1 crore for chopping off the tongue of Owaisi and called the AIMIM chief a ‘traitor’ who has no right to live in India.

Meanwhile, in Karimnagar district of Owaisi’s home state Telangana, a case was registered him on Friday over his speech wherein he had said he would not say ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ even if a knife is put on his throat.

The case was registered by KarimnagarThreeTown police, based on a complaint lodged by one Bethi Mahender Reddy.

In the complaint, Reddy alleged that Owaisi’s ‘defamatory’ speech would ‘promote enmity between different groups’.

Three Town circle inspector P Sadanandam said, “Based on the complaint, a case was registered against Owaisi under Indian Penal Code Section 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc).”

Owaisi, while addressing a public rally in Udgir tehsil of Latur district in Maharashtra on March 13, had said he would not say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

“I don’t chant that slogan. What are you going to do, Bhagwat sahab,” the Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad had said, referring to Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remark that the new generation needed to be taught to hail ‘Mother India’.