Lakhimpur Kheri violence news: BJP obstructing justice by not sacking minister Ajay Mishra, says Rahul Gandhi

Picture credit: ANI

A day after junior home minister Ajay Mishra’s son, Ashish, was arrested for his alleged role in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence in which eight persons were killed, UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh said, his party’s politics doesn’t veer around “looting or mowing down people with Fortuners”. Singh was speaking at a meeting of the minority wing in the state capital on Sunday.

Highlighting the recent violence and deaths at Lakhimpur Kheri, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday said her party will “fight BJP like it fought for freedom from the British.” Launching the party’s campaign for the UP elections due in February next year, Priyanka said she is fasting for Navratra even as Congress sought to underscore its “secular” message by starting the ‘Kisan Nyay Yatra’ with Hindu, Muslim and Sikh priests reciting prayers before the start of the rally.

“Those who can mow down farmers under the wheels, can also crush the Constitution,” said Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav at a public rally in Saharanpur’s Teetaro area on Sunday. Attacking the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government over Lakhimpur Kheri violence that left eight dead, Yadav said, “These people have rammed farmers under the wheels. They have not just rammed farmers but have also rammed the law in this case.”

It has been nearly a week since two BJP workers died in the violence at Banbirpur in Lakhimpur Kheri during a farmers’ protest. The families of both have now said that no senior party leader has come to visit them yet. Shyam Sundar Nishad, 32, was a contractual labourer who was appointed booth in- charge for BJP at Singha Kalan village. Locally, he was the party’s Dalit mobiliser. “He would be at every BJP event in the area. He was loyal to the party,” his father Balak Ram told TOI. He was talking to two policemen about security when TOI visited his house. “Shyam loved watching wrestling. He would go watch the annual event at Banbirpur every year. That day, he’d left for the match early in the morning.”