Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Madhavi Latha on Sunday mocked her Lok Sabha election rival from Hyderabad, Asadduddin Owaisi, after he claimed to have received death threats.

“Who is giving him (Asaduddin Owaisi) death threats?…Look at the level of his friendships. He is friends with people from ISIS, the kings’ group…He says that he has a stronghold here and then says that he is receiving death threats,” Latha told news agency ANI.

On Friday, the four-time Hyderabad MP had alleged to have received threatening social media posts after his meeting with the family members of deceased gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari.

Owaisi had visited Ansari’s Ghazipur home in Uttar Pradesh to offer condolences to his family. Ansari died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in UP’s Banda on March 28.

“The atmosphere created in the country is giving them strength to say such things. We will live as long as it is destined and no one is here to live forever. We appeal to ECI to monitor the situation,” Owaisi was quoted by ANI as saying.

An AIMIM bastion, the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven assembly segments of Bahadurpura, Chandrayangutta, Charminar, Goshamahal, Karwan, Malakpet and Yakatpura. All assembly seats, except Goshamahal, are held by the AIMIM. Goshamahal was retained by BJP’s Raja Singh.

Prior to Asaduddin Owaisi, his father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi had represented Hyderabad in the Lok Sabha for six consecutive terms between 1984 and 2004.

The BJP has fielded Madhavi Latha, a philanthropist, classical dancer and entrepreneur as its candidate in Hyderabad. She has the image of being a strong Hindutva proponent.

As a social activist, she had collaborated with several Muslim women groups on triple talaq and she was one of the few who were invited to talk on abolition of triple talaq.

Hyderabad is among the 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in Telangana that will go to polls on May 13 in the fourth phase of general elections. The counting of votes will take place on June 4.

(With PTI, ANI inputs)