A case has been registered against Madhavi Latha, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) candidate for the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, after videos showed her demanding burqa-clad voters to show their IDs and check their faces. The case was registered in Malakpet Police Station for violating Representation of People Act and interfering with the electoral process.
Latha has been booked under sections 171C, 186, 505(1)(c) of IPC and Section 132 of the Representation of the People Act. Latha came under fire on Monday after videos showed going to a booth in Azampur and checking voter IDs. Several people called her out for her lack of authorities to conduct the checks.
As the voting began across 25 Lok Sabha constituencies across Andhra Pradesh earlier in the day in the fourth phase of the polls, Latha was one of the early ones to cast her vote in at a polling booth set up at Amrita Vidyalaya in Secunderabad. After casting her vote, she went to a polling booth in Azampur, where she conducted checks. In one of the videos, she can be seen telling polling officials to strictly check the faces and the identity of voters. At one instance, she even directed her staff to note down the number of one of the staff.
Latha then proceed to check voters IDs of burqa-clad women sitting at the booth. She told one of the woman to lift her veil, which the voter obliges. Latha then verifies the woman with the photo on her voter ID, and even questioned the woman in the photo looked younger. The checking was done in the presence of police, who did not intervene.
However, her actions were called out on social media and Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) reportedly said it would file a complaint with the Election Commission of India against Latha.
Reacting to the controversy, Latha said, "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.
The BJP fielded Latha to take on Owaisi in the AIMIM bastion Hyderabad. Owaisi won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by a significant margin. Gaddam Srinivas Yadav is the BRS candidate from this high-profile Lok Sabha seat.
