Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel stopped at Lucknow airport, sits on dharna

Lucknow Oct 5: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was prevented from coming out of Lucknow's Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport Tuesday when he arrived to visit the state Congress office and meet party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Baghel sat on a dharna at the airport after being disallowed to go to the Uttar Pradesh Congress office amid widespread protest over the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.

"I am being stopped from going out of Lucknow airport without any orders," he wrote in a tweet with a photo of him sitting on the floor at the airport. The Chhattisgarh chief minister reasoned with the police on duty as to why he was being stopped but to no avail, a Congress spokesman said.

"Why am I being stopped? I am not going to Lakhimpur where there are prohibitory orders in place. I am only going to PCC (Congress office)," he asked the police personnel. Talking to mediapersons at the airport, Baghel said he does not plan to go to Lakhimpur Kheri but to the Congress office where he was scheduled to address a press conference later in the day.

Baghel also said he has come to meet party national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who is currently in custody at Sitapur.

The Uttar Pradesh government had Monday asked the Lucknow airport authority not to allow Chhattisgarh chief minister and the Punjab deputy chief minister who had to visit Lakhimpur Kheri in view of the violence that erupted there.

Eight people were killed Sunday as violence erupted during a farmers' protest claiming the lives of both farmers and BJP workers ahead of a visit to Lakhimpur by Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.

"After the incident in Lakhimpur, the district magistrate has imposed prohibitory orders there to maintain law and order. It is requested that you should not allow Chhattisgarh CM and Punjab deputy CM at the CCS Airport in Lucknow,' Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi had said in a letter dated October 3 to the Airport Authority of India (AAI).