New Delhi: Workers of Samajwadi Party, in the opposition in Uttar Pradesh, have said that they have been given ‘red cards’ by local police, purportedly to stop them from campaigning for their party.
The Tribune has reported that in the recently concluded last phase of Lok Sabha elections, many Samajwadi Party workers were given such slips which ordered them not to indulge in activities which “may obstruct peaceful polling.”
The slips identify workers as “impediments in the forthcoming elections” who “can also impact the law and order situation.”
Rajya Sabha MP from the party, Javed Ali Khan, told The Tribune that this is not the first time that red cards were issued to Samajwadi Party workers. They were also issued in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and earlier bypolls, “especially after the BJP came to power in UP.”
Khan said that more than 10,000 party workers in Moradabad and Sambhal have got these notices. Quite a few of them were taken into preventive custody, he added. No Bharatiya Janata Party workers got such notices, he said.
The report also quotes Khan as having said that he took up the issue during the INDIA bloc’s meeting with the Election Commission on May 10 over the delay in the release of voter turnout data.
