A day after Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh to meet the families of the victims killed in violence during a farmers' protest on Sunday, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP's SC Mishra travelled to their homes on Thursday.
After the Uttar Pradesh government allowed the leaders of various political parties to visit Lakhimpur Kheri in groups of not more than five people on Wednesday, a steady flow of opposition leaders to the homes of the victims of Sunday's violence is being witnessed.
With the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls due early next year, Lakhimpur Kheri has emerged as a focal point of politics with top leaders of anti-BJP parties rushing to the area in a bid to push the saffron party to the corner.
While Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders visited the homes of two of the four deceased farmers and journalist Raman Kashyap on Wednesday, Thursday saw Yadav and Mayawati's close confidante Mishra registering their attendance there.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who was detained at a police guest house in Sitapur since Monday and was released only on Wednesday, went to Bahraich on Thursday to meet the kin of the two other farmers killed in the violence.
Congress leaders Harish Rawat and Navjot Singh Sidhu were headed towards Lakhimpur on Thursday. However, both were stopped at the Uttar Pradesh border.
Priyanka Gandhi met the families of deceased farmers Gurvinder Singh and Daljit Singh in Bahraich and called for the dismissal of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra, whose son has been named in the FIR lodged in connection with Sunday's violence.
"If the minister of state for home does not resign nor is he sacked, then it means that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving a message to the public that if someone is in power, if he is a minister, he can do anything," she told reporters in Moharnia, where she met the family members of Gurvinder Singh.
Questioning the intention of the government that constituted a one-member judicial commission of retired Allahabad High Court judge Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, the Congress leader said besides Mishra's dismissal, the case should be probed by a sitting Supreme Court or high court judge and not by a retired judge.
The commission, with its headquarters in Lakhimpur, has been given two months' time to conclude its probe.
Priyanka Gandhi, who have met five of the eight people killed in Sunday's violence, said she also wanted to meet the families of the BJP workers who lost their lives.
"I had asked the IG to enquire if they (the BJP workers' families) were ready for the same, but was outrightly told that they do not want to meet me. I asked for conveying my sympathy to them," she added.
Senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister Rawat and others were stopped by the local administration at the Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand border in Bareilly.
In a tweet, the Uttar Pradesh Congress said, "In the face of every tyranny struggle is our slogan. Cowardly government @sherryontopp G has been arrested. Stopped from going to Lakhimpur."
It also posted pictures on Twitter of Sidhu with policemen.
With the Supreme Court seeking a status report on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident that left eight people, including four farmers, dead, BSP president Mayawati tweeted that this has given "hope to people for justice, for relief and for proper justice as the attitude of the BJP government in this matter appeared mostly biased".
"Although a delegation of BSP is meeting the victims' families today under the leadership of party general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP SC Mishra after government permission, but due to the involvement of a Union minister and some other influential people in the case, the anger of people is still there," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said in another tweet.
Yadav met the kin of the farmers and a scribe killed in the incident and stressed that the bereaved families want justice.
"There is a lot of arrogance in the government. Why have the named accused not been arrested so far? We have hopes from the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court will help the poor. The truth will come out. The accused will definitely get punishment. The Samajwadi Party is with the families of the victims. When the Samajwadi Party forms its government in Uttar Pradesh, maximum help will be extended to the victims," he said.
Yadav is expected to visit Bahraich on Friday to meet the families of the two other farmers killed in Lakhimpur Kheri.
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