In a fresh war of words, All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday fired back at Telangana Congress Chief Revanth Reddy during a public rally, accusing him of doing “dog whistle politics” targeting the minority class. Owaisi said that Reddy had nothing substantial to criticize and was resorting to personal attacks.

“You (Revanth Reddy) don’t have anything to criticise against us. You speak about our clothes and beards and attack us. It is called dog whistle politics. You are an RSS puppet. There is no difference between the BJP and the Congress,” Asaduddin Owaisi said at a public rally in Hyderabad.

The verbal spat started when Reddy took a swipe at Owaisi, alleging that the AIMIM leader “wears a khaki knicker under his sherwani”. Both Congress and AIMIM have been trying to label each other as the ‘B’ team of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Even cutouts depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi controlling Owaisi and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao were put up in Hyderabad last week.

“Telangana PCC chief started as an RSS member wearing a chaddi and then went to ABVP, then joined Telugu Desam and now come to Congress. Someone said it right that Congress’s Gandhi Bhavan is captured by Mohan Bhagwat and will run Congress however he wants,” the AIMIM chief said.

The ruling BRS also stepped up its attack on Congress, with the party’s working president and minister K T Rama Rao accusing the grand old party of using minority communities as a vote bank.

“The minorities were still living in poverty because Congress just used them for their benefit and saw them as a vote bank,” KTR said while speaking at a roadshow in Parigi in Telangana’s Vikarabad district. KTR alleged that Telangana has many chief minister candidates, including Jana Reddy, who is not even contesting in the election.

Telangana is witnessing an intense political battle as the Congress party has been running a spirited campaign.

The state will undergo assembly elections on November 30, and the counting of votes, along with those of four other poll-bound states, has been scheduled for December 3.