New Delhi: Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday clarified that the central government had no involvement in the suspension of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s Facebook account.

Responding to allegations and speculation around the incident, Vaishnaw said, “Action was taken by Facebook and not the government. There was an abusive post on his profile and Facebook took action according to their policies. Government has no role in it.”

His statement came hours after Akhilesh Yadav's account was restored by Facebook following a brief suspension that had triggered political outrage and debate over freedom of expression.

Why was the account flagged?

Earlier in the day, Akhilesh Yadav claimed that Facebook had suspended his account over two specific posts: one about the suspicious death of a woman in Ballia, and another about the murder of a journalist. According to him, the platform flagged the posts under the category of “Adult Sexual Exploitation and Violence.”

He questioned the rationale behind the suspension, saying, “In the post I had written, that the death of a journalist, putting pressure on them...doing FIRs on them and putting undue pressure on them, all of the BJP's tricks are being used here.”

He added, “What was wrong with this? But we have understood that the more we work on the ground, our fight will become successful and that is why we will work on the ground itself, and do the work of enlightening the people.”