Uttar Pradesh: No party leader visited us, say kin of two BJP workers killed in Lakhimpur Kheri violence

LAKHIMPUR KHERI: It has been nearly a week since two BJP workers died in the violence at Banbirpur in Lakhimpur Kheri during a farmers’ protest. The families of both have now said that no senior party leader has come to visit them yet.
Shyam Sundar, 32, was a contractual labourer who was appointed booth in- charge for BJP at Singha Kalan village. Locally, he was the party’s Dalit mobiliser. “He would be at every BJP event in the area. He was loyal to the party,” his father Balak Ram told TOI. He was talking to two policemen about security when TOI visited his house. “Shyam loved watching wrestling. He would go watch the annual event at Banbirpur every year. That day, he’d left for the match early in the morning.”
A video of Shyam, pleading for mercy upon being beaten up by farmers after the convoy he was part of ran over protesters, was shared widely. “He never harmed anyone," Balak said. Farmer leaders, meanwhile, have maintained that they handed Sundar over to the police alive. “I am not sure,” he said. “But it would mean a lot if party leaders tried to help me get justice. No one has reached out yet.”
In Lakhimpur city, a similar narrative has been playing out. Shubham Mishra, the other BJP worker who died at 29, was also a booth in-charge of BJP. Married three years ago, he left behind a year-old daughter. “He would actively participate in BJP’s work in the region. But not one senior BJP leader has visited us the way political leaders of other parties have met the families of farmers who died,” said Vijay Mishra, Shubham’s father, a businessman. “No senior party leader came to fight for us.”