LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s official Facebook account had been suspended for over 12 hours between Friday evening and Saturday morning. SP spokesperson Ameek Jamei accused the ruling BJP of suppressing opposition voices and said that the BJP's IT cell reinstated the account only after SP workers protested.
According to sources, Akhilesh Yadav had a following of more than 8 million people on Facebook. The reason for the suspension—whether a technical glitch or some other issue—has not been disclosed. Meta has not issued a statement on the matter yet.
On Friday night at 8:30 pm, Akhilesh Yadav’s Facebook page was suddenly suspended.
For those looking up the former CM' account on Facebook saw a message stating: “This content isn’t available right now. Usually this happens if the owner shared it with a limited audience, changed who can see it, or removed it.”
A post from an account named Samajwadi Party Media Cell said that BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya made significant efforts to temporarily block Akhilesh Yadav’s Facebook account. However, following the united voice of thousands and millions of Samajwadi Party supporters, the account was restored.
The post added that stopping the SP is beyond anyone’s control, and now that the account has been reinstated, political power will also return to the Samajwadis.
The suspension sparked outrage among SP leaders and workers. Atul Pradhan, SP MLA from Sardhana in Meerut, said the government could not keep Akhilesh away from the people by blocking his Facebook account.
However, the SP questioned Facebook asking for the basis on which this action was taken. They asked if it was a policy-related issue. The party asked if it was not undemocratic to suspend a page without any reason. They also queried if a political motive was there behind the action.