BJP’s Madhavi Latha checks identities of Muslim women, asks them to lift burqa.

After voting at the Amrita Vidyalaya, Latha visited several polling booths and stopped at Azampur to check the IDs of women who were waiting to vote. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Hyderabad K Madhavi Latha sparked a row on Monday after a video emerged where she was seen checking identity cards of burqa-clad Muslim women at a polling booth, asking them to lift or remove their veil. A case has been registered against her. After voting at the Amrita Vidyalaya, Latha visited several polling booths and stopped at Azampur to check the IDs of women waiting to vote. She also asked polling officials to allow voting once the IDs were properly checked, Indian Express reported. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, headed by incumbent MP Asaduddin Owaisi, registered a complaint against her with the Election Commission of India (ECI). Owaisi is seeking a fifth straight term as MP from Hyderabad. “I am a candidate. As per law candidate has the right to check the ID cards without the facemasks. I am not a man, I am a woman and with a lot of humbleness, I have only requested them – can I please see and verify with the ID cards? If somebody wants to make a big issue out of it, that means they are scared,” she told ANI. She earlier said that she did so as there were discrepancies in the voter lists and the names of several voters were missing. “The Police personnel seem very dull, they are not active…They are not checking anything. Senior citizen voters are coming here but their names are deleted from the list. A few of them are residents of Goshamahal but their names are in the list of Rangareddy…,” she told ANI. Hyderabad Collector said in a post on X that a case was registered in Malakpet Police Station. It said, “A case is registered in Malakpet Police Station against Smt Madhavi Latha, Contesting candidate, BJP under sections 171C, 186, 505(1)(c) of IPC and Section 132 of the Representation of the People Act.” Voting began on at 7:00 am for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in 17 constituencies in Telangana.