Lucknow, Dec 29 (IANS): Five members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were arrested by police Monday for allegedly putting up posters in Azamgarh that described Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav as "missing".

Yadav, who is the local MP, has not visited his Lok Sabha constituency ever since he won the polls from here. Posters showing him as 'lapata' (missing) appeared in the district in the past 24 hours.

A local police official told IANS that five BJP workers were caught pasting these posters on city walls at Churchgate. "Four persons have been arrested based on a complaint filed by a local resident Sufiyan and action is being taken against them. A case has been slapped against an unidentified printing press where the posters were printed," said S.D.Dwivedi, inspector, Kotwali.

Reacting to the development, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told reporters in Kannauj that the BJP always indulged in such tactics and had in fact nothing to do with development.

The state unit of the BJP called the police action victimization of its workers and said the fact remained that Mulayam had not visited Azamarh for the past seven months.

"The SP overnment has come down to harassing our workers but it cannot snatch away from us our right to democratic protests," state spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.