SP legislator Mitrasen Yadav is dead

Samajwadi Party legislator Mitrasen Yadav, who won the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in 1989 on CPI ticket at the height of the Ayodhya movement, died on Monday after prolonged illness. He was 85.

A legislator from Bikapur constituency in Faizabad when he passed away, Yadav was admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute where his condition deteriorated on Sunday.

Yadav was elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly in 1977, 1980, 1985, 1993, 1996 and 2012 and thrice to the Lok Sabha.

He was earlier with the Communist Party of India but later joined the Samajwadi Party.

In the 1989 Lok Sabha polls, when the Bharatiya Janata Party made rapid gains at the height of the movement aimed at building a Rama temple at the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, Yadav defeated the BJP in Faizabad.

Ayodhya form a key part of the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav visited the ailing leader at the hospital on Sunday night after his condition worsened, an official said.

Both the chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav mourned his death. His cremation will take place on Tuesday.