The only member of the BJP party who raised his voice over the Lakhimpur Kheri farmer run-over incident, Varun Gandhi, and his mother Maneka Gandhi were knocked out from the revised list of the 80-person BJP national executive. The list that was released today does not bear the names of the mother-son duo who have been in the party for years.
The BJP MP had called the unfortunate incident a “murder” and said the video was enough “to shake the soul”. The omission came shortly after his tweets went viral, though the BJP dismissed the topic, saying that rearrangements are a “routine exercise”.
BJP’s junior home minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra has been accused of running over protesting farmers, leading to their death. Varun Gandhi is the only BJP member who took cognizance of the case and took to Twitter to speak against it.
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Shockingly, Ashish Mishra, the accused, has neither been questioned nor arrested till now.
Speaking about the disappointment of top BJP leaders, a senior party leader from UP said, “There are other senior leaders from UP who have become part of the council in their place. There are at least ten. They must have lost their utility or relevance. We have seen the statements of the son on various occasions. It is after all the party’s decision.”
Varun Gandhi’s stance also apparently wasn’t taken well by these leaders, the senior BJP leader added, “He projected as if the entire fault lies at the doorsteps of the leaders. We are awaiting the investigation report and believe that incident was unfortunate. He should have been patient at a time when the entire opposition is targeting the party.”
BJP has been dropping off members from its national executive list who gave voice to the farmers’ cause. While Varun Gandhi has constantly been supporting the farmers and tweeting in their favour since the ruckus began, mother Maneka Gandhi too has been sympathetic towards the protesting farmers. Both of them were removed from the list, along with former Union Minister Birender Singh and Subramanian Swamy- who have either supported the cause or remained critical of BJP’s recent actions.
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After his Tuesday’s video tweet of a black SUV pushing into a congregation of peaceful protestors from behind, Varun Gandhi tweeted another version of the same video yesterday calling it “crystal clear” and “accountability for the innocent blood of farmers.”
“Protestors cannot be silenced through murder… Justice must be delivered before a message of arrogance and cruelty enters the minds of every farmer,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
He also urged the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to release a sum of Rs 1 crore as compensation to the families of the farmers who were killed. In his letter, he also requested for a CBI probe in the case.
Despite the video proof, the police haven’t interrogated Ashish Mishra. The son-father duo claimed that they weren’t present at the time of the incident but the SUV belonged to them. He also went to the home minister and boss Amit Shah to discuss the problem. Government sources have said that there is no chance of any resignation coming from Ajay Mishra despite demands from the opposition to quit his post.
