The Lucknow Municipal Corporation on Wednesday demolished shops on the road outside the Samajwadi Party office, claiming they were illegally constructed, PTI reported. The shops were mostly selling .

Civic body officials said the owners of the makeshift shops, mostly selling political campaign merchandise, on Vikramaditya Marg were sent notices on several occasions in the last six months, asking them to remove the structures.

“They were given time and an announcement was also made there earlier,” an unidentified civic body official said. “On Wednesday, we razed the illegal structures with bulldozers.”

While the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party office is located on one side of the road, there are bungalows of railway officers on the other side, PTI reported.

Lucknow civic body officials said that the shops encroaching on the empty spaces in front of these bungalows were disrupting the traffic flow.