Now, SP team ‘fails’ to meet another Muslim party MLA

LUCKNOW: Within days of senior SP leader and MLA Azam Khan not meeting the party delegation that arrived at Sitapur jail to meet him, another Muslim SP MLA Shazil Islam did not meet the party delegation that went to Bareilly on Tuesday to probe the alleged “illegal demolition of his petrol pump by the administration.”

Islam, SP’s Bhojipura MLA, was booked for allegedly making provocative remarks against chief minister Yogi Adityanath early this month and his petrol pump in Bareilly was demolished by the administration recently.

As the SP delegation, led by party MLC Sanjay Lathar, reached Islam’s residence in Bareilly, it found the MLA’s house locked and had to return without meeting him. Islam also did not turn up at the petrol pump where post-demolition debris was strewn all over when the delegation reached there to survey the site. The development comes a couple of days after a delegation, led by SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra, failed to meet Azam, lodged in the Sitapur district jail. Though Azam did not meet Mehrotra on Sunday, he had met, in the jail, Pragatisheel Samajwadi PartyLohia president Shivpal Yadav on Friday and Congress leader Promod Krishnam on Monday.

Mehrotra told newspersons outside the jail that jail authorities had told him that Azam was “unwell and won’t meet him.”

The developments have been happening amid speculation that SP’s Muslim leaders are upset with the party and its chief Akhilesh Yadav.

On Tuesday, after failing to meet Islam, Lathar told newspersons that Islam failed to meet him because the Yogi Adityanath government wants “to keep people frightened”.

The SP delegation then met Bareilly district magistrate Shivakant Dwivedi and senior superintendent of police Rohit Singh Sajwan and handed over a memorandum to them regarding the demolition of Islam’s ‘illegal’ petrol pump.