On Tuesday, the 25th of June, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi took the oath as a Member of Parliament, and raised the ‘Jai Palestine’ [hail Palestine] slogan inside the Lok Sabha. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader was sworn in as a member of Lok Sabha for the fifth time from Hyderabad.
After taking the oath on Tuesday, Owaisi said, “Jai Bhim, Jai Meem, Jai Telangana, Jai Palestine”.
Asaduddin Owaisi expressed solidarity with Palestine at a time when the territory is engaged in a violent conflict with Israel after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israeli civilians in October last year.
Right after Owaisi raised the pro-Palestine slogan in the Parliament, BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje lodged a complaint against Asaduddin Owaisi. In a written complaint to the Speaker and the Home Minister, Karandlaje has reportedly asked that Owaisi’s speech be removed from the parliamentary record and that he retake his oath without the controversial slogan.
Earlier, in 2019, Owaisi ended his oath as a member of the Parliament with the words “Jai Bhim, Allah-o-Akbar, and Jai Hind”. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Owaisi defeated BJP candidate Madhavi Latha in the Hyderabad constituency by 3.3 lakh votes.
After a controversy erupted over his remarks, Owaisi defended himself saying that there was no clause in the Constitution prohibiting him from chanting “Jai Palestine”.
“Other members are also saying different things… I said ‘Jai Bheem, Jai Telangana, Jai Palestine’. How is it wrong? Tell me the provision of Constitution? You should also listen to what others said. I said what I had to. Read what Mahatma Gandhi had said about Palestine,” Asaduddin Owaisi said.
Earlier, Asaduddin Owaisi had said that the situation in Palestine concerned not only Muslims but also humanity. He also referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the devil”.
It is pertinent to recall that it is the same Owaisi who had outrightly refused to raise the “Vande Mataram” slogan. He has even claimed that Muslims were being assaulted for not raising Vande Mataram and Jai Shri Ram slogans. His brother and controversial AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi had also opposed a Telangana government circular in 2019 which made singing Vande Mataram in schools mandatory.