LUCKNOW: Even after four days, Lakhimpur Kheri violence remained a political flashpoint on Thursday with leaders of all political parties jostling to visit the grieving families of deceased farmers.
In all eight persons were killed of which four were farmers, one was a journalist, and the rest three were BJP workers.
While former UP CM and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Satish Mishra went to Lakhimpur Kheri, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra went to Nanpara in Bahraich district to meet the farmers’ families. Priyanka, accompanied by brother Rahul and six other Congress leaders, had visited the victim families in Lakhimpur Kheri on Wednesday.
Raising the pitch of justice for the victim families, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav expressed doubts over the intent of the dispensation saying that how justice could be ensured when the main accused was the son of a union minister.
He said that the Union minister’s son was not yet arrested in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case even though evidence pointed to his role in the incident. "As fingers are raised towards MoS (Ajay Mishra) in the BJP government, the accused in the Lakhimpur case are not yet sent to jail," said Yadav.
The SP chief also used the opportunity to launch a broadside on the BJP government over the Kanpur trader’s killing in Gorakhpur. “We want to know what was done in the Kanpur Manish Gupta case. Why are policemen still absconding? Why an absconding IPS officer is not arrested?"
Even Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi sought justice for the victim families of Bahraich. BSP’s SC Mishra said that the state government had failed to deliver justice in the case.
On the other, Punjab state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was taken into custody in Saharanpur and taken to Sarsawa Air Force station while he was leading a protest march with a huge crowd of Congress workers to Lakhimpur Kheri.
The party members accompanying Sidhu were also taken into custody. Hundreds of supporters gathered at the UP-Haryana border to march with Sidhu. Another delegation led by Uttarakhand Congress leaders including Harish Rawat and Ganesh Godiyal were also taken into custody in Saharanpur.