LUCKNOW: A flexi
hoarding
came up outside the
Samajwadi Party
headquarters in Lucknow on Saturday morning with an appeal to all citizens to mourn the death of ‘former MLA’
Mukhtar Ansari
and not to celebrate
Eid
this year. The giant hoarding was later removed by the district
administration
.
The hoarding came up a day before Akhilesh Yadav’s scheduled visit to Ghazipur to meet the family members of Mukhtar Ansari at their native place in Mohammadabad to offer condolences.
The two developments have created a buzz in political circles.
SP leaders in Lucknow though said they were neither aware who installed it nor who got it removed.
The hoarding was put up by Ram Sudhakar Yadav, former state secretary of SP’s frontal organisation — Mulayam Singh Youth Brigade. It had a huge photograph of Mukhtar Ansari along with the photos of Mulayam Singh, Akhilesh Yadav, party’s Muslim face Azam Khan and state SP president Naresh Uttam Patel on the top. It also had a big photograph of Ram SudhakarYadav.
Beside Mukhtar’s photograph was an appeal “to all Muslim and non Muslims across the state and in the country not to
celebrate
Eid and mourn the untimely demise of former MLA Mukhtar Ansari’. It further read: “… on Eid everyone should stand outside the Eidgah and observe two minutes of silence to pray.”
“We Samajwadi companions stand with the bereaved family in this hour of sorrow,” the appeal concluded with the name of Ram Sudhakar written below it.
“I have no idea about the hoarding. When I reached the party office in the morning there was no hoarding,” said SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary. “May be some supporters of the former MLA had installed the hoarding and it was later removed by the administration. The party has no idea about it,” Chaudhary said.
