Akhilesh urges for restraint after poster row, questions BJP's silence on similar acts
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Lucknow (PTI): 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.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
