Lucknow:
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav’s official Facebook account was restored on Saturday, after it was allegedly suspended on Friday evening. The 52-year-old’s Facebook account, which had around eight million followers, was suspended around 6 pm on Friday ‘without a warning’, the party alleged. It is not known why the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s Facebook account was suspended and the social media giant has not issued a statement yet.
This gave an opportunity to the Samajwadi Party to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, with party leader Fakhrul Hasan Chaand saying that the saffron party has imposed an ‘undeclared Emergency’ in the country and accusing it of suppressing ‘every opposing voice’. However, Chaand said the SP will not bow down to the BJP and will keep opposing its anti-people policies.
“Suspending the Facebook account of respected Akhilesh Yadav ji, the national president of the country’s third-largest party, is an attack on democracy,” he posted on X.
Pooja Shukla, another SP leader, also attacked the BJP and the Facebook, saying the latter has crossed all the limits by suspending Yadav’s Facebook account without a warning. “This is not an ordinary account — this is Akhilesh Yadav ji , the voice of millions! Facebook must remember its boundaries — it cannot silence democracy. Samajwadis, it’s time to bring Facebook to its senses!” she posted on X, adding that the SP will not tolerate this.
SP MP Rajeev Rai, meanwhile, said condemned Facebook’s move and said suppressing voices is a mistake. In an X post, he said the Facebook did this at the behest of the BJP. “Blocking the account of the leader of the third largest party in the country’s parliament, the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Honourable Shri Akhilesh Yadav ji, by Facebook is not only condemnable but also a blow to India’s democratic system,” he said.
Meanwhile, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “The action has been taken by Facebook. The government has no role in it. An abusive post was made from his account, because of which Facebook has taken this decision according to its own policies.”
