Accusing the Narendra Modi-led central government and the Yogi government of Uttar Pradesh for ‘throttling’ the democracy amid the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab on Tuesday staged protests against the governments and burnt effigies of Prime Minister Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath in all the assembly constituencies of the state. The party leaders and volunteers participated in large numbers and raised slogans against the Modi and the Yogi government.In a statement issued from the party headquarters here, AAP MLA and Kisan Wing Punjab president, Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that the party leaders and volunteers while protesting raised the demand for the arrest of the son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra and also the dismissal of the minister with a fair investigation.Sandhwan said that injustice was being done to the farmers and the Modi and UP government was strangling democracy.
“The Lakhimpur Kheri violence is a blot on our democracy. The oppression meted upon the farmers is not acceptable,” he said, adding that it’s only ‘goonda raj’ of batons and bullets system in UP.The AAP leader claimed that instead of taking action against the minister’s son, the BJP government is trying to save him. He said that about 700 farmers have been martyred during the ongoing farmers' movement; but despite this, the Narendra Modi-led central government and the Yogi government of Uttar Pradesh were still bloodthirsty.Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that the Aam Aadmi Party stands firmly with the farmers and the kin of the victims. “The voice of the farmers cannot be suppressed. The ‘annadatas’ are the bread-winners of the country and the barbarism inflicted on them cannot go unanswered. The government should immediately bring the perpetrators of the violence to book with the arrest of the minister’s son,” he said.Sandhwan further termed the provocative remarks made by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to the BJP workers against the farmers for setting up a BJP ‘goonda’ brigade and responding by ‘tit for tat’ as extremely unfortunate and an expression of the BJP's goon thinking.