Akhilesh urges for restraint after poster row, questions BJP's silence on similar acts

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav called for political restraint on Thursday, following a recent poster controversy involving B R Ambedkar's image.

Addressing a press conference here, Yadav said, "Lalchand Gautam is the same SP worker because of whom the entire Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was forced out of their air-conditioned rooms and onto the streets."

Gautam, the SP worker at the centre of a controversy over a social media post that depicted a merged image of Yadav and B R Ambedkar, was also present at the press conference.

The SP chief said he had personally met Gautam and advised him to refrain from creating or sharing any such content in the future that could hurt people's sentiments.

"I have explained it to him that he must never again make or share anything that might offend anyone," he said.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister further questioned that whether the BJP could exercise the same control over its leaders and workers.

"We have already guided our workers, but can the BJP do the same? Can it ensure that its leaders do not behave disrespectfully towards Babasaheb Ambedkar or any other great personality?" he asked.

Yadav also pointed out that similar imagery involving BJP leaders had surfaced in the past, but the SP chose not to politicise those incidents.

"Their (BJP) leaders' pictures were also there, but we never made an issue out of it," he said.

At the press conference, the SP reiterated to its supporters and workers not to draw comparisons between party leaders and national icons, a day after a controversial poster was put up outside its office here that featured the split faces of Yadav and Ambedkar.

The party, while thanking its supporters for their affection and dedication, expressed concern over the use of such imagery, which has sparked a political row.

"We wholeheartedly thank all our supporters and party workers for their love, affection and commitment," the SP said in a post on X earlier in the day.

"However, we make a very sensitive appeal that no leader of any party should ever be compared to or equated with any divine and venerable personality in any context," it added, cautioning against creating or circulating any images, idols, songs or statements that suggest such comparisons.

The SP leadership has been trying to woo the Dalits, once considered loyal to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and competing with the BJP for the support of the Other Backward Classes (OBC), considered the mainstay of the saffron party's phenomenal electoral gains in Uttar Pradesh since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.