Lockdown notwithstanding, Over 2,000 attend last rites of BJP leader

An active BJP worker since early 80’s and party’s current state vice president, Shukla, 62, had died of cardiac arrest on Sunday noon at a private hospital.

Defying lockdown, a crowd of over 2,000 people, including ministers, MPs and MLAs, attended the last rites of BJP leader Upendra Datt Shukla at Badhalganj’s Mukti Path in Gorakhpur on Monday evening.

The crowd at the funeral of the BJP leader, however, was in sharp contrast to social distancing message given by the CM, who had chosen not to attend the last rite of his father Anand Singh Bisht last month. (HT)

An active BJP worker since early 80’s and party’s current state vice president, Shukla, 62, had died of cardiac arrest on Sunday noon at a private hospital.

He had unsuccessfully contested 2018 Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-poll.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had offered his condolence to Shukla on twitter.

The crowd at the funeral of the BJP leader, however, was in sharp contrast to social distancing message given by the CM, who had chosen not to attend the last rite of his father Anand Singh Bisht last month.

He had instead watched the live coverage of the cremation on TV.

BJP MLA Radha Mohan Das Aggarwal, who was among the attendees, took to social media to slam violators “Minister Brijesh Pathak made repeated requests to people to maintain social distancing but nobody listened to him. There was no police force to control the situation. When the crowd turns frenzy it becomes tough to control it,” he said while revealing that he faced similar situation at the recent ‘Brahm bhoj’ of BJP leader when a local corporator misbehaved with him on the request of maintaining social distancing.

Barhalganj SHO, Ram Agya Singh, said “It is not so that the police did not try to enforce social distancing. On our request, many went back from the site while other stayed.”

As per lockdown guidelines, a limited gathering of 20-25 people is allowed at the funeral.