Imam of Jama Masjid (Delhi) Syed Ahmed Bukhari on Saturday, served a three-month ultimatum to the Samajwadi Party to fulfill its promises made to Msuilims during the 2012 Assembly polls or face the consequences.
Bukhari alleged that not a single promise made by the SP during that period has been fulfilled in its four-year regime.
“The SP had promised to give reservation in government jobs to Muslims, address security issues and the release of the innocents Muslim youths languishing in jails on terror charges. But nothing has been done yet by the government hence the Msulims feel cheated,’’ said Bukhari in lucknow on Saturday.
“We have sought time from CM Akhilesh Yadav and will apprise him on Sunday about our demands. If the UP government fails to address, then we will have to thrash out our strategy for the 2017 Assembly polls,” he said after a daylong meeting with his supporters here. In the meet, an 18-point resolution was also passed, which will be handed over to the CM. Talking to reporters, Bukhari said that it was unfortunate that even Mulayam Singh Yadav is not interested in the problems of the Muslim community.
In a veiled attack at his bete noire Azam Khan, Bukhari said, “A handful of Muslim leaders in UP are only serving their vested interests under the guise of serving the cause of Muslims.’’
The press meet of Bukhari was marred by a undavoury incident when one of his personal security guard misbehaved with a journalist asking him to grt out of t he hall just for asking a pointed question. The local journalists strongly protested against the conduct of the guard forcing Bukhari to apologise for the incident. This is the second time in lucknow that Bukhari’s press conference was marred by such incident. In 2010, Bukhari had himself assaulted a journalist during a press conference.