Lucknow: Senior Uttar Pradesh minister Mohd Azam Khan on Saturday alleged that his former party colleague Amar Singh and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Sangeet Som were plotting to murder him.
The UP urban development minister said the two belonged to the same caste and were conspiring to eliminate him.
“Amar Singh and Sangeet Som are plotting to murder me… they can do whatever they want to do,” he said in Rampur, his assembly constituency.
Referring to the Z-plus security to Som, one of the accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, the minister said he had “an army of commandos at his disposal”.
Som had earlier alleged that Khan was trying to physically harm him. Amar Singh had also said he feared for his life from Khan as he was a powerful leader, who had once got him thrown out of the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Sangeet Som, MLA from Sardhana in western UP, had also alleged that the SP leader was involved in terror activities.
Reacting to the allegations of Azam Khan, state spokesman of BJP, Vijay Bahadur Pathak, said Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav should ask police to give adequate security to his minister.
“While on one hand it is worrying that even a minister of state is not safe in the regime of his own party, on another, the statements seem to be a result of the possible entry of Amar Singh back into the party that Khan is trying to stop,” he added.
Amar Singh was not available for comment as he is in London on a family vacation.