Team News Riveting
Raipur, October 5
Even as normalcy has been fast returning to Lakhimpur Kheri after the deadly Sunday violence, the desperate opposition parties are trying to keep the issue alive and reap the political advantage.
While the top opposition parties are struggling to reach Lakhimpur Kheri following heavy police barricades, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation managed to breach and reach at the epicentre of Sunday’s violence. The delegation included MPs Kakoli Ghosh and Sushmita Dev.
The leaders of the TMC, which is trying to expand its political footprint in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh with Samajwadi Party, met the family members of the four farmers who died when the vehicle of the BJP leader mowed them down. They however did not bother to meet the relatives of the other four who were pulled out of vehicles and lynched.
Interestingly, the TMC MPs referred to Singur to link it with Lakhimpur Kheri farmers’ agitation. But they did not even name Nandigram that had rejected Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the May 2021 assembly elections.
Singur and Nandigram had been the epicentre of farmers’ stir that help Trinamool to gain political ground in West Bengal and oust the Communist regime. Of the two centres, Nandigram was much in limelight as more farmers’ casualties were reported from the place. Even Mamata’s popularity increased only after the Nandigram campaign.
The TMC MPs told the bereaved family members that party supremo Mamata Banerjee would come to Lakhimpur Kheri if required. “She had sat on dharna in Singur for 26 days for the farmers’ cause and it was the biggest agitation,” they said. During the entire conversation, the TMC leaders did not refer to Nandigram agitation.
For, it exposed Mamata never enjoyed the support of farmers. In May 2021 state polls, she had to face a humiliating defeat in Nandigram from where she contested as a symbol of farmers’ leader.
Meanwhile, life is fast returning to normalcy in violence-hit Lakhimpur Kheri. On Tuesday, regular traffic was seen on roads and shops opening shutters.
