Lucknow, October 12: The Facebook page of Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was restored on Saturday after being unavailable for several hours, sparking a political row over alleged attempts to curb opposition voices.
For much of Friday night, users attempting to access Yadav’s verified account encountered error messages stating that the content was unavailable or that the page could not be found. The account reappeared on Saturday morning without explanation.
A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, confirmed the restoration, saying, “We restored the page once the issue was brought to our notice,” but declined to comment on why it had been taken down in the first place. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the suspension was triggered by a “very abusive post” from Yadav’s account and that the action had been taken by Facebook, not the government. “It was FB action, not govt action,” Vaishnaw said.
The Samajwadi Party dismissed that explanation, alleging that the move was politically motivated and directed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Senior SP leaders said the episode reflected an “undeclared emergency” in India aimed at silencing dissent and opposition voices. Neither Facebook nor Yadav’s party has provided details about the content that led to the brief suspension.
