Lucknow, Feb 11 (IANS): Uttar Pradesh Labour and Employment Minister Shahid Manzoor faced a hostile crowd in Meerut's Kithaur constituency on Saturday when he visited a polling both.

The 61-year-old politician, who is the incumbent legislator from Kithaur constituency, was greeted with slogans and some people also pelted stones at him, after which he beat a hasty retreat, officials said.

Police had a tough time ensuring the minister's safety. 

The incident happened at the Islamia Madarsa poling booth. When he was talking to the voters, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supporters outside took umbrage to his spending a long time inside. 

Soon, all hell broke loose and the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader was gheraoed by an angry mob of BSP supporters after which police had to resort to cane charge to disperse the unruly crowd.

Normalcy has since returned to the polling booth and Election Commission officials said that voting was not affected in any manner during the melee. 

The minister's staff refused to comment on the incident. BSP supporters alleged that police was acting at the behest of the minister and that angered them.