Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday claimed that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from Lok Sabha was BJP’s tactic to divert people’s attention from issues like inflation, unemployment and mismanagement of India’s finances by an ‘industrialist friend’.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also alleged that since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in UP in 2017, it had used the government and administration to lodge false cases against Samajwadi Party MLAs, including Azam Khan,  and got them disqualified from the state assembly.

He alleged that the BJP was strangulating the Constitution.

“Azam Khan’s son Abdullah Azam was also disqualified from the membership of the state assembly following his conviction. BJP has targeted one more SP MLA Irfan Solanki by implicating him in false cases,” he alleged.

Yadav, who was on a day-long visit to Noida and Greater Noida, said if a fair investigation were conducted, a lot of BJP leaders would also lose their legislative membership on the basis of the language used by them and the remarks made by them.

Taking potshots at the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav said it was not right to go against the court but it was disappointing to see Congress leader Rahul Gandhi being disqualified as a Lok Sabha member post his conviction in a defamation case.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that the BJP leaders “should remember their own statements”.

“When someone in a fake tweet had said that ‘netaji’ (Mulayam Singh Yadav) and I had a fight and instead of condemning it, the BJP said that our workers are doing the right thing and should keep taking it ahead,” he said.