Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has threatened legal action against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey after a social media post allegedly linked him to an accused in the Ayodhya Ram Temple donation theft case, widening a politically sensitive dispute over temple fund handling.
Yadav called the post false and defamatory, publicly warning Dubey to delete it within ten minutes or face a named FIR. He also warned others who had circulated the allegation to remove the material and issue a public apology, saying legal proceedings would follow if the claim remained online.
The confrontation centres on Ramshankar, also known as Tinnu Yadav, described in case records and political exchanges as one of the accused in the alleged embezzlement of donations collected for the Ram Temple. Dubey’s post, and material shared alongside it, suggested a political link between the accused and Yadav, a claim the Samajwadi Party has rejected as fabricated.
Party functionaries approached Hazratganj police station in Lucknow seeking registration of a case against Dubey and social media user Saravanaprasad Balasubramanian. The party has also moved through legal notice, arguing that the posts were intended to damage Yadav’s reputation and inject unverified claims into an investigation already under public scrutiny.
The donation theft case has triggered wider questions over the systems used to handle offerings linked to the Ram Temple, one of the country’s most politically charged religious projects. Investigators have been examining how people involved in donation-counting and related processes were engaged, amid allegations that safeguards were bypassed and referrals influenced appointments.
The BJP has sought to use the issue to question the Samajwadi Party’s political positioning on Ayodhya, while the opposition has framed the allegation against Yadav as an attempt to divert attention from accountability within the donation-management mechanism.
The row has sharpened at a time when Uttar Pradesh politics is already being shaped by rival narratives around faith, governance and institutional trust. For the Samajwadi Party, the immediate focus is reputational defence and police action. For the BJP, the controversy offers another opening to target Yadav over Ayodhya, even as investigators continue to establish the money trail and responsibility in the alleged theft.
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