Akhilesh’s FB account restored, Centre denies role in suspension

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav’s official Facebook account, which was allegedly suspended earlier, was restored on Saturday, said the party sources.

SP spokesperson Deepak Ranjan confirmed the suspension as well as the subsequent restoration of the social media page. However, party’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said, “I am not yet aware if it has been restored, but the main issue is who was behind this suspension? The act was a clear attempt to block democratic opinion and truth.”

SP leaders had earlier accused the BJP government of imposing an “undeclared emergency to suppress every opposing voice”, following the alleged suspension of the account with more than 8 million followers.

After Yadav’s Facebook was suspended on October 10, the Centre had clarified on Saturday that it had no role in getting it suspended.

Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday that the suspension was Facebook’s action. “There was a post on his account, due to which Facebook took action according to their policy. We had no role in it,” Vaishnaw said.

Yadav’s account on the social media site could not be accessed for hours on October 10 evening.

This had prompted the SP to allege that it had been suspended at the behest of the BJP. “The suspension of the Facebook account of the national president of the country’s third largest party is an attack on democracy. The BJP government has imposed an undeclared emergency in the country, where it wants to suppress every voice raised in the opposition,” Samajwadi Party leader Fakhrul Hasan Chaand had posted on X.