Ahead of UP elections, SP suspends Badaun MLA Abid Raza for 'anti-party' activites

The ruling Samajwadi Party today suspended its Badaun MLA Abid Raza for his alleged involvement in anti-party activities. "On the proposal of Badaun unit against Raza, party state president Akhilesh Yadav has suspended him from the party," party spokesman Rajendra Chowdhrury said.

Raza had on 6 August alleged in Badaun that a prominent SP leader in the government was involved in cow-slaughtering and illegal mining and that he would "expose" the leader in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

According to media reports, Raza was in touch with opposition parties for a ticket for the upcoming Assembly polls, as he believed that the SP might not repeat him as its MLA candidate.

Earlier, the SP had suspended four MLAs in June, just days after the MLC polls following reports that they had indulged in cross-voting.

The suspended MLAs were Nawazish Alam (Budhana-Muzaffarnagar), Bhagwan Sharma alias Guddu Pandit (Dibai), Mukesh Sharma (Shikarpur-Bulandshahr), and Shyam Prakash (Gopamau in Hardoi).

-With inputs from PTI