Mumbai: Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Abu Azmi was suspended from attending the ongoing Maharashtra Assembly session on Wednesday (March 5) for its entire duration, a day after he praised Mughal emperor Aurangzeb during a media interaction.
Azmi, a four-time MLA from Mumbai’s Mankhurd Shivajinagar constituency, was suspended after a motion to suspend him was moved by parliamentary affairs minister Chandrakant Patil and later the state assembly passed the motion.
Azmi was not present on the floor today, and the statement he made was also not made on the floor of the Assembly.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Azmi had claimed that “Aurangzeb was not a cruel leader,” and added that he was not against Hindus, and that he did not believe in violently converting Hindus to Islam. He also praised the Mughal emperor as a good administrator. This statement quickly caused a stir and led to a furore in the Assembly.
It is interesting that while the entire opposition had focused on Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) (Ajit Pawar’s faction) MLA Dhananjay Munde – who has resigned as a minister on Tuesday – during the ongoing budget session, now the attention has suddenly shifted to Azmi’s statement, which was made outside the Assembly session.
On Tuesday, Munde had to resign from his ministerial post after his close aide was chargesheeted in a case involving the abduction and gruesome murder of local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Beed’s Massajog village sarpanch, Santosh Deshmukh. Munde, who is part of the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra, was forced to resign amid mounting pressure on chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who failed to act on the allegations sooner.
Also read: Dhananjay Munde and the Politics Surrounding the Brutal Murder of a Maharashtra Sarpanch
But today, the focus shifted.
Soon after the motion to suspend Azmi was passed, he took to his X account and stated that what he said was merely a reiteration of what historians have long been asserting. “I didn’t come up with my own theory,” he said. He also mentioned that, as the issue was being blown out of proportion, he chose to apologise. “This was not because I was wrong in saying what I said, but because I am answerable to my over five lakh voters. The Assembly has to function smoothly, so I apologised,” he said in the video posted on social media.
महाराष्ट्र विधानसभा द्वारा बजट सत्र के लिए मेरा निलंबन सिर्फ मेरे साथ नहीं बल्कि जिनका मैं प्रतिनिधित्व करता हूँ उन लाखों लोगों के साथ नाइंसाफी है, ये मेरे साथ ज़्यादती है।
मैं महाराष्ट्र सरकार से पूछना चाहूंगा क्या राज्य में दो तरह के कानून चलते है? अबू आसिम आज़मी के लिए अलग… pic.twitter.com/Qchx6Yfc1N
— Abu Asim Azmi (@abuasimazmi) March 5, 2025
Maharashtra deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde said that Azmi will have to face consequences for his statements. Shiv Sena (Shinde’s faction) staged protest against Azmi outside the Assembly and demands to book Azmi under sedition charges were made. They claimed that by praising Aurangazeb, Azmi had insulted Maratha warrior king Sambhaji who was brutally tortured and killed by Aurangazeb.
FIRs have now been registered against Azmi across Mumbai and Thane district.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath demanded that the SP should expel Azmi for his remarks and asked for the Maharashtra leader to be sent to the northern state as his government knows how to ‘treat’ such people.
