Rashtriya lok Dal (RlD) workers threw potatoes on the road near Vidhan Sabha highlighting the plight of potato growers in the city on Thursday noon giving pre-occupied lucknow police a tough task to handle. The cops tried to stop them from moving further on the way making a chain of policemen as barricade and this resulted into altercation. Police used force to stop them but the workers succeeded in reaching the Vidhan Sabha Road where they threw potatoes. The leader later gave memorandum addressed to Governor UP to district magistrate and ended their protest.
As per their pre announced program, a huge number of workers led by national general secretary Trilok Tyagi and RlD state president, Dr Masood Ahmad moved towards the Vidhan Sabha road after a brief meeting at the party headquarters in the morning. Soon they reached near BJP office, they were stopped by the policemen deployed. Police had put barricades there and a small space was opened for public movement. As the RlD workers outnumbered the cops, some of them sneaked the barricading and reached at the Vidhan Sabha road. Seeing this, the cops moved towards them and in the meanwhile some more workers managed to cross the barricading and reached at the road. The policemen deployed around the Vidhan Sabha rushed the scene and they formed a chain to stop the workers.
Hitting out at the BJP government while addressing the workers after the protest, Trilok Tyagi said the law and order was witnessing a steep deterioration and the BJP leaders and government officials were making a mockery of the law. “Stop carrying encounters to intimidate the people of the state, ensure safety to women and provide employment to jobless,” he demanded saying the RlD workers will go on mass agitation if the government failed to fulfill their demands. The meeting was also addressed by other senior RlD leaders.
Senior RlD leaders, Anil Dubey, Rajendra Sharma, Vansh Narayan Patel , Shiv Karan Singh, Dr Sudhakar Pandey, Onkar Singh, JP Pushkar, Anil Chaudhary and leaders of frontal organization of RlD were present in the dharna. The RlD demanded support price for potato as Rs 1150 and its announcement in the days to come besides other issues like purchase of ¾ crops by government.