Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged in the Lok Sabha that the violence and loss of lives in Sambhal during a survey at a mosque was a “well-planned conspiracy” aimed at hurting communal harmony.

During Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Akhilesh said the Sambhal flare-up, in which four persons lost their lives in a clash with police during the November 24 court-ordered survey of the Jama Masjid, was also a fallout of the “fight between Delhi and Lucknow”, seeking to obliquely hint at a tussle between the BJP high command in New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The survey was ordered in response to a petition that claimed that the mosque was built by razing a Harihar temple during the reign of Mughal emperor Babur.

Akhilesh said “the move by the BJP and its associates to go for khudai (excavation)” of the mosque would end up shattering communal harmony in the country. “Those who want to dig everywhere will one day end up digging out the Ganga-Jamuni (syncretic) culture of the country,” he told the Lok Sabha.

Akhilesh alleged that the BJP “does not follow the Constitution” and sought to link the by-elections in nine Assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh to the survey of the mosque in Sambhal. “Bypolls scheduled earlier for November 13 were postponed to November 20. (Then) a petition was filed against the Shahi Jama Masjid (in Sambhal) in a local court and a survey order was passed without listening to the other side. On November 19, the survey was conducted,” he said, stressing that the event went off peacefully.

Akhilesh claimed that trouble started when the administration went for another survey on November 24. He accused the state administration of abusing, baton-charging and firing on people during the survey.

“When the administration went for another survey on November 24, people gathered and wanted to know why a second such exercise was being conducted. The circle officer abused residents, a lathi-charge was carried out and after this the police fired, leading to the death of innocent people,” Akhilesh alleged, demanding that “a murder case” should be filed against the officials responsible.

Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Samajwadi MP Ram Gopal Yadav said “some people” were allowed to enter the mosque on November 24, which triggered fear among locals that the structure could be damaged. He alleged the mosque survey was deliberately done by the BJP to distract public attention from “malpractices” in bypolls.

Members of the Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress staged a walkout on the issue.

The unity over Sambhal inside Parliament, however, was not seen during the Opposition protest outside the House over the charges of bribery brought by the US justice department against industrialist Gautam Adani and others.

The Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party kept away from the joint Opposition protest where Congress MPs were seen waving placards that read “Modi, Adani are one”. The protest took place outside the gates of Parliament just before the two Houses assembled for the day. “The Sambhal issue is much bigger than the Adani matter,” a Samajwadi MP said.