Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was stopped at the Lucknow airport on Tuesday by the local administration. This is probably the first time that a Chief Minister has not been allowed to move out of an airport. Senior Congress leaders Pramod Tiwari and PL Punia, who had gone to the airport to receive him, were denied entry into the airport. Baghel, who is also the Congress observer for Uttar Pradesh, was scheduled to go to Sitapur to meet Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who is under detention since Monday.
"I have come here to meet my leader but these people are not allowing me to come out of the airport. I am sitting here and will not go back without meeting my leader. I am not going to Lakhimpur but Sitapur," he said, sitting on the floor at the airport.
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) October 5, 2021
Sitapur is where Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was detained while she was on her way to Lakhimpur Kheri, where nine people died and several others were injured on Sunday in the bloodiest clash since the farmers' protest over the Union government’s agriculture laws began last year. Priyanka Gandhi, still arrested by UP cops, tweeted a video on Tuesday morning showing a video of a car being driven into a crowd of protesting farmers.
The farmers have blamed Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni, for the violence. The violence had broken out on Sunday during an anti-farm laws protest ahead of UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's visit to Banbirpur, the native village of Union Minister of State Home Ajay Mishra. Mishra's son Ashish and BJP supporters are accused of running over farmers in their SUVs and an FIR has been registered against Ashish Mishra in connection with the incident. However, Ashish Mishra has claimed that he was not present in any of the vehicles that were a part of the convoy at the time of the incident. The Uttar Pradesh government declared on Monday that a retired High Court judge will probe the incident.
Those who died in the violence have been identified as Daljeet Singh (32) and Gurvinder Singh (20), both from Bahraich district; Lavpreet Singh (30) of Chaukhada farm; and Nachhatar Singh (65) from Nandapurwa village, both in Kheri. A post-mortem of three BJP workers — identified as Hariom (35), Shyam Sundar (40) and Shubham Mishra (30) — all from Kheri district was carried out late on Sunday night. Their last rites were performed by their kin on Monday. Among those killed was a local journalist Raman Kasyap (28), who worked with Sadhna news, and the cause of his death is not known yet.