LUCKNOW - The Samajwadi Party (SP) will Monday honour its leader Abu Asim Azmi who was recently attacked by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) legislators in the assembly at Mumbai for taking his oath in Hindi and not Marathi.

SP — led by Mulayam Singh Yadav — Saturday resolved to honour Azmi, the recently elected party legislator from Maharashtra.

“Azmi upheld the prestige of the national language in the anti-Hindi environment prevailing in Maharashtra,” party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said here.

“It was a brave decision taken by Abu Azmi, who stood by the party’s stand on the national language, despite the threat and intimidation by the MNS anti-socials,” he told IANS.

“SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav has decided to felicitate Azmi at the party’s Uttar Pradesh headquarters here on Nov 16,” he said.

Azmi was assaulted by MNS members on the floor of Maharashtra assembly earlier this week after he defied MNS supremo Raj Thackeray’s diktat to take oath in the Vidhan Sabha only in Marathi.

The newly elected SP legislator chose to take oath in Hindi on the plea that he had the right to read out his oath in the national language.

Apart from Mulayam Singh Yadav, other senior leaders of SP would be present at the felicitation ceremony.

Terming MNS as a “divisive force”, Chaudhary said: “I also wish to tell Raj Thackeray that he must realise the damage he was causing to the nation’s fabric through his acts and utterances; he should have learnt his lessons from the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, when the entire nation stood together to fight back the enemy.”

“MNS ought to understand that a crisis like that can be dealt with only when the nation stands united; no state could have fought it alone,” he added.