Lucknow, Jul 23 (IANS): The Samajwadi Party has termed the withdrawal of the security cover to SP President Akhilesh Yadav as an 'act of vendetta'.

Senior Samajwadi legislator and leader of opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary said, "The BJP governments are indulging in unmatched act of political vendetta. Never before has any political party behaved like this. Withdrawing security of top leaders without any apparent reason is unpardonable and the people will make the BJP pay for it. BJP has been targeting Akhilesh Yadav since long."

Another former SP minister Arvind Singh Gope said that political vendetta was the only reason behind the move to withdraw the security of the SP President.

"Who is going to be responsible if any untoward incident takes place? We are not going to take this lying down," he said.

Senior BJP minister Satish Mahana said that the decision to scale down security had been taken after reviewing the threat perception.

"The security of some BJP leaders has also been scaled down so there is no question of political vendetta. SP leaders have a habit of making unnecessary noise," he said.