Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday said he had ordered the police to fire at kar sevaks in Ayodhya in 1990 to protect the country’s unity and integrity, PTI reported. A lakh kar sevaks from across India had assembled in the city to construct a temple at the disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site.

“If more people were required to be killed for the country’s unity and integrity, security forces would have done it,” the veteran leader said at the party’s headquarters, where his 79th birthday was celebrated.

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Earlier in November, a petitioner had moved the Supreme Court after the Allahabad High Court dismissed his plea seeking an FIR against the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in connection with the Ayodhya firing, The Indian Express had reported.

Yadav had made a similar statement last year. “It was needed to save the religious place [Babri Masjid] and maintain the faith of Muslims in the country,” he had said. “Even if 30 people had been killed in the firing instead of 16, I would have still not withdrawn my decision.”

All is well

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party leader said during Wednesday’s event that there was no rift between him and his son Akhilesh Yadav, PTI reported.

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“He is a son first and a leader later,” he told party workers.

In October, Akhilesh Yadav was re-elected as the party’s national president for five years at the Samajwadi Party’s national convention in Agra. There were reports of a feud between him and his father, who was reportedly unhappy with the party’s dismal performance in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in March, where it won only 47 seats.

The first sign of tensions between the two began to appear in September 2016, when Mulayam Singh Yadav appointed his brother Shivpal Yadav as the state party president. That forced Akhilesh Yadav to remove Shivpal from the Cabinet.