Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for Hyderabad parliamentary constituency Madhavi Latha was on Monday booked for humiliating Muslim women voters by asking them to remove burqas to show their faces so as to reveal their identity.
Following a complaint from Hyderabad LS returning officer Ronald Rose, the Malakpet police registered a case against Madhavi Latha under Sections 171C (voluntarily interfering in the exercise of electoral right), 186 (voluntarily obstructing a public servant from discharging of duties) and 505 (1)(c) (circulation of a statement with an intent to incite a class or community) of the Indian Penal Code, besides Section 132 of the Representation of the People Act.
In the morning, Madhavi Latha barged into a polling station at Azampura and enquired about the identity of the Muslim women voters.
She asked them to remove their burqa to disclose their identity to verify whether their faces were the same in their voter identidy cards.
A video of Madhavi Latha’s behaviour with Muslim women voters went viral on social media, acting the EC authorities to take prompt action against her.
“The Police personnel seem very dull, they are not active...They are not checking anything. Hence, I had to do it,” she said, adding votes of several senior citizens were deleted from the voters’ list.
Madhavi Latha defended her decision to ask some women voters to verify their identity and said there was nothing wrong in her move.
“I am a candidate and every candidate has the right to verify the credentials of the voters who were wearing face masks or burqua,” she told reporters.
She said being a woman herself, she had all the respect for women.
“I only requested them to disclose their identity. If anybody makes it a big issue, it is apparent that they are afraid of exposure of malpractices,” she said.
