Lucknow, Jul 11 (IANS): Embarrassments for the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) from its own cadres and legislators show no signs of abating.

A few days after its legislator from Bhadohi Vijay Mishra, jailed for crimes like murder, showed up at the chief minister's official residence during a lunch hosted for UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee, Mishra again left the government red faced late Tuesday when he walked into a famous Hanuman temple.

While law does not bar any legislator from visiting either a temple or the residence of the chief minister, the controversy here has erupted because Mishra is behind bars and cannot roam around freely, like he has done twice in a short time span of a week.

Senior opposition leaders accused the government of paying lip service to law and order while its own workers and legislators break law every now and then.

Vijaya Bahadur Pathak, spokesman of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the government was "helpless" in controlling their own men as they show wanton disregard for the law of the land. Mishra late Tuesday walked into the Hanuman Setu near the university, overruling the two sub-inspectors and the ten Uttarf Pradesh police men who wanted him not to tread out of the Balrampur hospital, where he is being treated under custody.

Mishra is close to the Samajwadi party (SP) leadership and has been in jail during the Mayawati regime for his alleged role in a bomb attack on Nand Gopal Nandi, former Minister in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government. After a political and public outcry over his attendance at the lunch for Pranab Mukherjee, the home department ordered a probe into the jailed don-turned-legislator's entry into the 5, Kalidas Marg residence of the chief minister.