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Azamgarh visit: Samajwadi Party’s rivals accuse Akhilesh Yadav of ignoring Muslim leaders
The BSP as well as the Peace Party, Rashtriya Ulama Council and AIMIM, hit out at Akhilesh Yadav for meeting Ramakant Yadav in jail but ignoring Muslim leaders like Azam Khan and Shahzil Islam in the past.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s visit to Azamgarh on Monday (August 22) to meet jailed party MLA Ramakant Yadav has led to his political rivals attacking him in an apparent bid to keep Muslim voters in good humour.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as well as the Peace Party, Rashtriya Ulama Council (RUC) and All India Majilis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), hit out at Yadav for meeting Ramakant Yadav in jail but ignoring Muslim leaders like Azam Khan and Shahzil Islam in the past.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, BSP chief Mayawati said the sharp reactions to the SP chief’s visit to Azamgarh to meet and express sympathy with jailed MLA Ramakant Yadav, notorious for muscle power, are natural. It also reinforces the general belief that the SP is guardian of these types of criminal elements, she said.
Mayawati asked if it was unreasonable to ask the question posed by common people and various organisations to the SP chief as to why he did not go to jail to meet Muslim leaders. He (Akhiesh Yadav) has accused the BJP government of implicating SP leaders in fake cases and imprisoning them in jail, she said.
Peace Party chief Mohammad Ayub, in a tweet, said, “When will we think and take political decisions by rejecting selfish agendas? Akhilesh Yadav will meet Ramakant Yadav in jail, but not his Muslim MLAs. Will form an alliance with the political parties that have a support base among the Dalits and Backward communities, but not with the Peace Party. If the BJP commits oppression, discrimination, the 80% Muslim community members vote (for) and support the SP,” he said.
RUC spokesperson Talha Rashadi, in a press statement, said the SP chief met the jailed party MLA, who is charged in heinous crime and illicit liquor case, but he did not meet party MLAs and leaders belonging to the Muslim community when they were behind bars. With the support of the Muslim community, the SP won 111 seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, he said.
If the SP leadership ignores the Muslim community, then it will make the task difficult for the SP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, he added.
AIMIM state president Shaukat Ali said the SP leadership is ignoring the Muslim community after getting their votes in the 2022 assembly election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Akhilesh him of promoting caste politics in the state. The SP is concerned about one community while the remaining backward community members are sidelined, said a BJP leader.
Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said, “The Samajwadi Party patronises criminals. Had the Samajwadi Party not been in U.P., the state would have been free of crime. Now, the BJP is making the state free of crime and criminals.”
Union minister BL Verma, a Lok Sabha MP and an OBC leader, said, “As far as crime and criminals go, it’s nothing new for the SP. Before 2017, criminals called the shots in the state and that is why we had raised the slogan, ‘na goondaraj, na bhrastachar’. We have breached SP’s Azamgarh and now I can say that in 2024 the SP would fail to open its account.”
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the party is fighting for the rights of all communities.
The Muslim community has full faith in the SP and the rival parties are merely trying to create confusion among the Muslims to serve their vested political interests, Chaudhary said.
Ramkant Yadav is a former four-term MP from Azamgarh and five-term MLA. He enjoys considerable influence over the Yadav community voters in the district. The BJP had wrested the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat from the SP in by-election held in June. The by-poll was necessitated as Akhilesh Yadav had vacated the seat after he was elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly for the first time in March from Karhal (Mainpuri).
In the 2022 assembly elections, the SP won all the 10 seats in Azamgarh district. Hence, the SP’s defeat in the by-election sent a message that the BJP had made a dent in the SP’s Yadav support base.
Bhojpuri actor-singer Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua of the BJP defeated SP leader Dharmendra Yadav, cousin of Akhilesh Yadav, in Azamgarh in June. The SP is now working to regain its lost bastion in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
