Farmers Movement Archive

SP, Cong legislators ride bullock cart, rickshaw to protest price hike

LUCKNOW Samajwadi Party (SP) MLAs and MLCs staged a protest against the BJP governments in the state and at the centre outside the UP Assembly shortly before the monsoon session of the legislature began on Tuesday morning. The protestors also had a showdown with the police on way to the Vidhan Sabha. Three SP legislators – Rajesh Yadav, Sangram Singh Yadav and Narendra Verma – rode a bullock cart to reach the Vidhan Sabha to protest over farm laws and fuel price hike. They waved the national flag and the SP flag, carried sugarcane and placards and raised slogans all along, till the police stopped them at Hazratganj and refused to let the bullock cart go any further. At Chaudhary Charan Singh’s statue on the Vidhan Sabha premises, nearly a 100 SP legislators gathered and staged a dharna protesting against “poor law and order, three new farm laws, crime against women, rising fuel prices, Covid deaths, Covid management and other issues like unemployment, reservations and caste census.” While a couple of SP legislators climbed the front gate of the Vidhan Bhawan and protested, two legislators wearing oxygen masks shouted slogans like “death due to lack of oxygen during Covid second wave.” SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, who had addressed the Samajwadi Party legislature party meeting on Monday where he said that party legislators will raise public issues both on the streets and in the legislature, was quick on Tuesday to tweet the picture of the SP legislators going to Vidhan Sabha on a bullock cart. He captioned it in Hindi: “Will tell BJP’s lies to all; will show the mirror to BJP people.”Simultaneously with the SP protest, Congress state president Ajay Kumar Lallu (MLA), along with others, reached the Vidhan Sabha on cycle rickshaws. “Congress legislators Ajay Kumar Lallu, Aradhana Mishra (Congress legislators party leader), Deepak Singh, Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Suhail Akhtar reached the Vidhan Sabha on cycle rickshaws. All Congress legislators protested over farmers’ issues, unemployment and price rise. They also had a showdown with the police when cops tried to stop a vegetable cart (to protest price rise) they were taking to the Vidhan Sabha. However, the Congress legislators managed to reach the Assembly on rickshaw,” said the UP Congress Committee in a statement. “We are protesting Covid mismanagement, corruption, price rise, law and order, unemployment, flood mismanagement and issues of cane farmers. To protest, we rode rickshaws and were pushing a vegetable cart from the Congress office. We will also raise the issues in the legislature,” said Ajay Lallu.

Hindustan Times

17-08-2021

Lucknow