VARANASI: An FIR was lodged against senior Samajwadi Party leader and party's Maharashtra state president Abu Azmi at Saraimeer police station of Azamgarh on Tuesday for making alleged derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath.The case was lodged on the complaint of one Hanumant Singh of Ahiraula area of Azamgarh who alleged in the FIR that Azmi, while talking to the media, said that "Modi has to go back to Gujarat after 2019 elections" and also used some derogatory words against the PM. On the question of renaming of Azamgarh, Azmi said, "Yogi can not do that because Azamgarh was renamed by Azam Shah and not by Yogi's family".Saraimeer SO Manoj Kumar Singh said, "The FIR has been lodged against Azmi under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 503 (criminal intimidation) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of IPC."Azmi was in Azamgarh to attend a function on Monday night. The video of his chat with reporters went viral on social media on Tuesday. While talking to reporters, he strongly criticized the BJP governments on the issue of communal divide and changing the names of cities.He accused the BJP of fanning communal sentiment on Ayodhya issue for political gains in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. "The entire cabinet (of Yogi government) was in Ayodhya with only purpose... to do politics over mandir-masjid," he said."In their 900-year rule, Muslims rulers never caused Hindi-Muslim rift, but in just four-and-a-half years they (BJP government) are raising the issue of temple and mosque and changing the names of cities only to hide their failure," said Azmi accusing the Modi government of not fulfilling its promises.Replying to a query regarding construction of Ram temple, he said, "Temple should be built and Muslims would help in it, but even Ram would not like to see the temple after demolishing the mosque. The matter is in the court and its verdict should be honoured, and no attempt should be made to create a sense of fear among the Muslims," he said adding that the government cannot bring an ordinance for construction of Ram temple as it would be a dishonour of the court.

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