Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday met the family of two farmers killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence and alleged that the BJP government wants to hide the truth by strangling democracy and run the state on the might of the police.
The days of the BJP government in the state are numbered, Akhilesh Yadav said, questioning why the government is delaying justice even after videos of the incident have surfaced and witnesses have recorded their statements.
The former chief minister also took a dig at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying he is "sleeping" when people are being killed in the state. He was reacting to a statement by Yogi Adityanath, who claimed that the SP chief sleeps till 12 in the morning.
"The chief minister knows everything about my waking up and sleeping but the government of the chief minister, who calls himself a Yogi, is "sleeping"," Mr Yadav said.
Mr Yadav's statement comes on a day the Uttar Pradesh Police issued a fresh notice to Union minister Ajay Mishra's son Ashish Mishra after he failed to appear before it for questioning over the violence, which killed eight people, including four farmers.
The state has been served the maximum notices of human rights violation under the current regime, Mr Yadav claimed. The poor are not getting justice and democracy is being strangled by killing the truth, he alleged.
"This government wants to hide the reality and run the state on the might of the police," the SP chief told reporters after meeting the families of the two victims.
"Now, only about 100 days of the Uttar Pradesh government are left. Remember the date of January 4. All these policemen who are being seen here will undergo a change of attitude," Akhilesh Yadav said, apparently basing his calculation on the 2017 Assembly polls, whose code of conduct had come into force on that date.
"In his home district Gorakhpur, six criminals killed a businessman and left but 'baba' chief minister kept sleeping. Criminals are on the run after crushing farmers and the chief minister is sleeping. The speech of the (Union) Minister of State for Home has gone viral, which everyone is watching but the eyes of the chief minister are shut. Perhaps, after the remarks by the Supreme Court, his eyes may open," Akhilesh Yadav said.
The SP president said the Samajwadi Party is standing with the farmers' movement and the victims' families.
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