After a nine-member Bharatiya Janata Party team went to Kairana, Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday, a delegation of parliamentarians from Opposition parties is set to visit the district later on Thursday. The district has been at the centre of controversy after BJP leader Hukum Singh (pictured above) last week listed members of Hindu families who, he said, were forced to leave the district after threats and extortion 'from a particular community’. However, a state inquiry team has found that only 9 people of the 346 listed had left because of harassment.

The MPs who will visit the town include Janata Dal (United) member KC Tyagi, Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Mohammed Salim, Communist Party of India's D Raja, Nationalist Congress Party's DP Tripathi and Rashtriya Janata Dal spokesperson Manoj Jha, among others, PTI reported. Tyagi has said the BJP is trying to cause communal tension ahead of the state election scheduled for next year. He has also said, “We all strongly condemn Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah's statement that the Kairana exodus will be taken up at an all-India level. This statement has created anxiety and tension in western Uttar Pradesh.”

However, the BJP team that visited Kairana on Wednesday has maintained that the people from the list had fled the area for the reasons they had stated. “The list released by Hukum Singh had 346 names, but after meeting the people, we feel a larger number wants to flee from Kairana,” BJP’s Suresh Khanna, who led the team, said. The team was criticised for restricting it’s investigation to five colonies and not meeting more people named on the list, NDTV reported.