New Delhi, March 10 The ruling BJP is set to win all eight Assembly seats in the Lakhimpur Kheri district, the epicentre of the farmers' protest, in the polls to the 403-seat Assembly in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday till 6 p.m.
In 2021, during the peak of the farmers' protest on October 4, Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Teni's son mowed down half a dozen people under his car, including four farmers protesting against the now repealed three contentious farm laws.
It was widely perceived that the farmers' anger would cost the BJP electorally in the district and to some extent in western Uttar Pradesh.
However, with counting underway through the day, it is clear that the BJP is set to win all eight Assembly seats in the district. Incidentally, on all eight seats, the BJP candidates are trending ahead of the distant second Samajwadi Party candidates.
In Palia, Harvinder Kumar Sahni alias Romi Sahni of the BJP is ahead of Pritinder Singh Kakku of the Samajwadi Party (SP); in Nighasan, BJP's Shashank Verma is ahead of the SP's R.S. Kushwaha; in Gola Gokrannath, Arvind Giri of the BJP is racing ahead of Vinay Tiwari of the SP and in Sri Nagar, Manju Tyagi of the BJP is set to trump SP's Ram Sharan.
Similarly, in Dhaurahra, Vinod Shankar of the BJP is set to trounce Varun Singh of the SP; in Lakhimpur, Yogesh Verma of the BJP is leading Utkarsh Verma Madhur of the SP; in Kasta, BJP's Saurabh Singh is trending ahead of Sunil Kumar Singh of the SP while in Mohammadi, Lokendra Pratap Singh of the BJP is leading Daud Ahmad of the SP.
The massive countrywide agitation against the three contentious farm laws had prompted Narendra Modi-led Union government to repeal them in November 2021, nearly two months after the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.
Filing criminal cases and bringing the accused to justice was one of the prominent demands of the farmer organisations.
Soon after the Centre had brought in an ordinance for the three Union farm laws, multiple farmer organisations under the consortium of Samyukt Kisan Morcha had launched a protest that spread beyond the national capital across India but was mostly confined to Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
On October 4, 2021, four farmers were among those killed when a car ran over the protesting farmers at Lakhimpur Kheri.
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