You're minister, not monarch: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi slams Kiren Rijiju for remarks

HYDERABAD: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday hit out at Union minister for minority affairs Kiren Rijiju for his comments about India being the only country where minorities receive more benefits and protection than the majority community. Rijiju had made the remarks during a newspaper interview while listing achievements during 11 years of PM Narendra Modi's govt.In the war of words that erupted on X on Monday, Owaisi asked: "You are a Minister of the Indian Republic, not a monarch. @KirenRijiju, you hold a constitutional post, not a throne. Minority rights are fundamental rights, not charity. Is it a 'benefit' to be called Pakistani, Bangladeshi, jihadi, or Rohingya every single day? Is it 'protection' to be lynched? Is it protection that Indian citizens were kidnapped and pushed into Bangladesh?"The Hyderabad MP further said: "Is it a privilege to watch our homes, masjids, and mazars being bulldozed illegally? To be made socially, politically, and economically invisible? Is it an 'honour' to be the target of hate speeches from no less than the Prime Minister of India?"Asaduddin said that India's minorities are not even second-class citizens anymore. "We are hostages. If you want to talk about 'favours', answer this: Can Muslims be members of Hindu Endowment Boards? No. But your Waqf Amendment Act forces non-Muslims onto Waqf Boards - and allows them to form a majority," he saidThe BJP govt at the Centre even discontinued the Maulana Azad National Fellowship, defunded pre-matric scholarship, and limited post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarships. All because they benefited Muslim students, he said. Muslims are now the only group whose numbers fell in higher education and increased in the informal economy, he said. "They were among the worst-hit by your (central govt's) economic policies. This is your own govt's data. Indian Muslims are the only group whose children are now worse off than their parents or grandparents. Intergenerational mobility reversed. Muslim-concentrated areas are the ones most starved of public infrastructure and basic services," he said."We are not asking to be compared with other minorities of other countries. We are not asking for more than what the majority community gets. We are demanding what the Constitution promises: social, economic, and political justice," Owaisi said.