New Delhi, Oct 5 (IANS) Calling the Lakhimpur Kheri violence unfortunate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday said the opposition parties are politicising the incident.
The BJP Kisan Morcha National President, Rajkumar Chahar told IANS that when an investigation is underway, he failed to understand why opposition leaders are in a hurry to visit Lakhimpur Kheri.
A Lok Sabha member from Fatehpur Sikri, Chahar said, "An unfortunate incident happened and when the state government is taking action, why they (opposition leaders) are so adamant to visit. First let the state government take action and allow families of the deceased victims to hold their last rites after completing the post-mortem. They can visit the area later."
Referring to police action against protesting farmers in Congress-ruled Rajasthan, the BJP leader said, "Congress leaders who are very keen to visit Lakhimpur Kheri have not uttered a single word against police lathicharge on farmers in Hanumangarh, Rajasthan."
Chahar criticised Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel's visit to Uttar Pradesh after the violence and said the Congress is starting a new practice against set norms.
"What Congress Chief Minister Baghel is doing is not correct and it will start new practice against the democratic norms. Will they like and allow the Chief Minister of a non-Congress ruled state to visit a Congress-ruled state after any unfortunate incident concerning law and order. It is a dangerous practice started by the Congress Chief Minister and I condemn the interference of a Chief Minister in the matters of another state," he said.
Chahar said the state government has already announced financial assistance to the families of the deceased and a judicial inquiry to find the cause behind the violence as well as provide a job to one member from the families of the deceased.
Nine persons were killed during a farmers' protest in Lakhimpur Kheri which turned violent on Sunday. The Uttar Pradesh government has announced a financial compensation of Rs 45 lakh to the kin of the deceased farmers while assistance of Rs 10 lakh will be given to the injured persons. A judicial inquiry by a retired high court judge has been ordered into the entire sequence of events which led to the violence.
Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi held an emergency meeting with the District Magistrates and Superintendent of Polices of West and East Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hooghly, and Howrah on Thursday evening and took stock of the situation. After that the state government decided to deploy the Army in certain areas. However, NDRF teams have been kept on standby.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
The ex-CM of Punjab recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government's track record on the 2017 poll promises.
It is learnt that Channi in his first meeting with the Prime Minister after becoming chief minister of Punjab requested that the Centre take back its decision to postpone paddy procurement by 10 days. The Centre has postponed the procurement of paddy by 10 days due to rain in Punjab and Haryana. Earlier the procurement was supposed to start from October 1 but now it will start from October 11.
Scotching speculation to the contrary, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday made it clear he was not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but had no intention of continuing in the Congress either, which he said was going downhill with senior leaders completely ignored and not given a voice.
