Rahul Gandhi-led team denied permission by UP government for Lakhimpur Kheri visit today
The Congress stated in a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that a five-member team led by Rahul Gandhi intended to visit the district. It also referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's arrest as "without any cause or justification."
FollowThe state government has denied Congress leader Rahul Gandhi permission to visit Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri on Wednesday, as part of its efforts to prevent many opposition leaders, including his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, from visiting the district where eight people were killed in Sunday's violence. The Congress stated in a letter to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that a five-member team led by Rahul Gandhi intended to visit the district. It also referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's arrest as "without any cause or justification."
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According to news agency ANI, the visit was rejected soon after, with the state administration citing restrictions prohibiting big gatherings. On Tuesday, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a Congress national secretary, said that she was being held unlawfully at a police complex in Sitapur and that no notification or FIR was issued to her despite her 38-hour incarceration that she was not permitted to speak with her legal counsel. She stated in a statement that she has not been brought before a magistrate or any other court authority, nor has she been permitted to speak with her legal counsel, who has been stationed outside the compound's gate since the morning.
Since Monday morning, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been detained after requesting to meet with the relatives of those killed in the Lakhimpur riots. She claims she saw a section of a paper on social media in which the authorities listed 11 persons, eight of whom were not even there at the time she was detained. They've even identified the two people "who carried my clothing from Lucknow on the afternoon of October 4," she claims. On Sunday, eight people were killed when violence broke out at a farmers' protest in Lakhimpur Kheri, killing both farmers and BJP members ahead of a visit by UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
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Four of the dead were people in the cars, apparently part of a convoy of BJP workers who had come to welcome the UP minister and were attacked after allegedly running over the protesting farmers.
