Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she was “very sad” that farmers had been “brutally butchered” at Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday and termed the incident as a “shame for democracy” and the BJP.
“I am very sad…. The farmers were brutally butchered. This is a very bad, very sad incident. I am at a loss for words in trying to condemn this unequivocally…. It is a shame for democracy. It is a shame for the BJP party,” the Bengal chief minister told journalists outside the Gurdwara Sant Kutiya in Bhowanipore here on Monday evening.
She had sent a delegation of five Trinamul Congress MPs — Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar of Barasat, Pratima Mondal of Joynagar, Rajya Sabha members Dola Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Sushmita Dev — to Lakhimpur earlier in the day, but they were denied access by the UP government.
“My team may not have been allowed there today. But in the future, we will surely meet,” said Mamata.
On Sunday, four farmers protesting with black flags had been mowed down by a car linked to junior Union minister for home Ajay Misra “Teni” at his village in Lakhimpur Kheri, days after he had warned that the agitators would be fixed in “two minutes” if they did not mend their ways. Four more people had died by the end of the day.
“(These are) our farmer brothers and sisters, the movement they have been sustaining on the streets for a year, for the rescinding of the contentious farm laws…. There, the deputy (Union) home minister, his car, did this. Many people died, many others injured…. Section 144, everywhere today. After the farmers were brutally butchered,” said Mamata.
Trinamul on Monday issued a statement calling out the “barbaric” act, underscoring that the cars involved in the incident were part of a convoy owned by Teni and his son Ashish Mishra was purportedly leading the fleet.
“According to Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait, the convoy even opened fire at the farmers!” the party said.
“The apathy of BJP towards our farmer brethren pains me deeply. It’s a matter of national shame that under Mr. Modi’s watch, our farmers had to see such a day!” the statement quoted Mamata as saying.
In the evening, she demanded answers on the BJP’s accountability in the context of alleged attempts to malign Bengal despite the absence of such incidents here.
“Bengal runs so peacefully. Yet they send human rights panels and whatnot, making up fake stories, to malign Bengal outside. When so many people are killed under the wheels of his car, or by opening fire… simply because he is a minister’s son?” she asked.
However, asked to respond to questions on the administrative action in UP against Congress’s Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata said: “I am going to speak for myself, not about anybody else.”
In response to a question on whether the BJP’s UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath should resign, Mamata asked: “Who will give resignation?”
“They talk about the Ram raj… is this Ram raj? This is a killing raj,” she added.
