Owaisi brothers are the Thackerays of Hyderabad

New Delhi: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi and his elder brother Asaduddin Owaisi, who is a Lok Sabha member, have ruled Hyderabad with an iron fist, and have made a reputation for controversy. Their party, the MIM, is small, but large in its influence through Andhra Pradesh.

They are known as the Thackerays of Hyderabad, as the Owaisi brothers of the old city are feared and rarely challenged. The writ of the MIM, a hardline political party, which the brothers inherited, runs across the city and sometimes goes beyond it.

Elder brother Asaduddin Owaisi is an MP from Hyderabad and his younger brother Akbaruddin Owaisi is an MLA. They're both well-educated, but are known for practising crude local politics, hitting the headlines mostly for the wrong reasons - be it the attack on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen or the temple row at Char Minar.

They are known as the Thackerays of Hyderabad, as the Owaisi brothers of the old city are feared and rarely challenged.

The Owaisi family run MIM is just made up of 1 MP and 7 MLAs. However, their iron grip over the Muslim community of Andhra Pradesh is disproportionate to their real strength, often forcing the government to turn a blind eye to their strong arm tactics.

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