Lucknow, Dec 24 (IANS): The Samajwadi Party has asked the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to explain the presence of local intelligence unit (LIU) personnel in the press conference of Akhilesh Yadav.

From its official Twitter handle, the party has demanded to know on whose instruction was the LIU personnel sent for the press conference on Sunday.

Senior SP leader Pawan Pandey said that the presence of the LIU personnel at a party event was a serious matter.

"This indicates that the state government is afraid of SP which is the main opposition party in the state. We want to tell the government that snooping on our leaders will not deter us form raising issues related to the common man," he said.

Akhilesh Yadav, on Sunday, had convened a press conference at the party office in which he mounted scathing attack on the Yogi Adityanath government on its crackdown on those who were protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

He said that innocent people were being targeted by the state government and said that the CAA was an attempt to divert attention from other issues like economic slowdown and unemployment.

It was at this press conference that SP leaders saw a LIU personnel sitting among journalists.