After a lot of collective attacks from the opposition, finally, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi was permitted to visit Lakhimpur Kheri, had a face-off with the UP police on Wednesday when he landed in Lucknow airport over transport arrangements.
A five-member team of the Congress, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, has been cleared for a visit to Lakhimpur Kheri to meet the families of farmers who died on Sunday.
Earlier today, Junior Home Minister Ajay Mishra met his boss, Amit Shah, amid opposition demands for his dismissal over allegations that his son ran over the peacefully protesting farmers on Sunday.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut questioned whether Uttar Pradesh is Pakistan as Indians are stopped from entering the state, adding that the administration is imposing Section 144 in the Lakhimpur Kheri but detaining opposition leaders in Lucknow.
Priyanka Gandhi was seen in a huge confrontation with the police as she demanded to see a warrant for her arrest. A video showed her lashing out at the cops as Mr Hooda was physically pushed.
“Try touching me…,” she was heard saying. “If you will put me in that car I will charge you with kidnapping. And the charge will not be against the police but you,” she told the police.
Priyanka Gandhi’s husband Robert Vadra said he had been stopped from going to Lucknow to “check on my wife (Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) and make sure she is fine and well”.
Vadra also expressed his shock that his wife had still not been allowed to meet her legal counsel. “I have been stopped (from going) to Lucknow, UP, to check on my wife and make sure she is fine and well. I am shocked beyond belief… how Priyanka has been arrested under Section 151 of the Indian Penal Code. I spoke with her yesterday and she informed me she has not been served with any order or notice,” Vadra wrote on Facebook.
“… not been produced before a judicial officer, not allowed to meet her legal counsel. I am really worried for her… packed my bag to go to Lucknow when I was informed, I won’t be allowed to step out of the airport,” he said.
A Union Minister’s son, accused of running over farmers at Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri on Sunday, has yet to be arrested amid a flurry of videos and contradictory versions of the incident in which eight people were killed.
Sumit Jaiswal, a local BJP leader seen in a video leaving the SUV that allegedly crushed protesting farmers, claimed that the protesters attacked Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra’s convoy, not the other way round.
He has filed a case alleging that his driver, friend and two BJP workers were beaten to death and that he found out from social media later. In the FIR, filed three days after the incident, he says he was in the SUV with his friend Shubham and driver Hari Om when protesters attacked the car. The driver was injured and attacked with sticks and swords; he claims.
Exclusive video of Lakhimpur Kheri where the tragic incident took place
