Dissent gets shriller in SP, party leader quits of apathy to Muslims
LUCKNOW: Amid the growing discontent among the Muslim leadership in the Samajwadi Party, the first Muslim leader Salman Javed Raeen tendered his resignation from the party in protest against the alleged apathy of the party leadership towards the Muslim community.
While writing a letter to party leadership, Raeen flagged the guarded silence by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav by quoting the instances of Azam Khan who, he claimed, was sent to jail along with his family, Kairana MLA Nahid Hasan had been languishing in jail and Shahzil Islam, SP MLA from Bhojipura assembly segment in Bareilly district, booked for hate speech and his petrol pump was demolished.
The SP office-bearer from Sultanpur further added that if a coward leader could not raise the voice in support of his party men, how could he be expected to raise people’s issues. Raeen is not the first person to express his discontent with the attitude of SP chef towards Muslims, earlier, SP stalwart and party’s Rampur MLA Azam Khan’s media in-charge Fasahat Ali Shanu had also aired his anger and disappointment with the approach of Akhilesh Yadav towards Azam.
Shanu had claimed that Akhilesh did not reciprocate the gesture of Azam Khan who supported the candidature of both Akhilesh and Mulayam for the Chief Ministership, by appointing him as leader of the opposition in the 18th Assembly.
Shanu had claimed at a meeting in the Rampur SP office that Akhilesh Yadav could win 125 seats with the overwhelming support of Muslims but he did not want to be seen with them. He had accused Akhilesh Yadav of visiting Azam Khan in jail just once during the last 26 months of his incarceration.
Earlier, even SP MP from Sambhal, Shafiqur Rehman Barq had also expressed his dissatisfaction with the way SP was going about Muslims. Significantly, the state chief of Jayant Chaudhury led Rashtriya Lok Dal, Masood Ahmad was the first one to raise a red flag against the alliance leadership immediately after the Assembly elections accusing them of having a dictatorial attitude and having sold the tickets to candidates.
On the other, in an interesting turn of events, a senior Muslim cleric Maulana Shahabuddin Rizvi, associated with the revered shrine of Ala Hazrat in Bareilly, advised the community to explore other options, even the BJP, to extend support. He even accused the SP chief of abhorring Muslims and that he failed to unite himself with the minority community. The cleric charged Akhilesh with pushing the prominent Muslim faces back during the election carrying the whole campaign alone. “There is a huge difference between the SP of Akhilesh and Mulayam Singh Yadav,” said the cleric.