Bar assn prez, wife booked for ‘assaulting’ Lakhimpur BJP MLA

Lakhimpur Kheri Days after BJP MLA from Lakhimpur Yogesh Verma was allegedly assaulted during the filing of nominations for the Urban Cooperative Bank delegate election, an FIR was lodged against district bar association (DBA) president Awadhesh Singh, his wife and several others on the lawmaker’s complaint.

Along with Singh, his wife and former UCB chairperson Pushpa Singh, dozens of people not named in the FIR were charged with sections 189(2) (unlawful assembly), 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 131 (using criminal force on a person) and others of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), police said.

On October 9, the MLA, who had alleged serious irregularities in the election process, reached the spot where nominations were being filed.

In the FIR, Verma alleged that Singh, his wife and their associates took away the nomination papers of some candidates and misbehaved with prominent local businessman Raju Agrawal. He alleged that Singh and others physically assaulted and abused him and one Hemant Gupta.

The DBA president was also a BJP member.

In the aftermath of the incident, four people, including Singh and the party’s district vice president Anil Yadav, were expelled from the party on Monday. Deo Kant Pandey