In a tragic incident, the granddaughter of BJP MP Rita Bahaguna Joshi died of burn injuries sustained during Diwali celebrations in Prayagraj on Monday.
The six-year-old child, Kiya, was the daughter of Mayank, Joshi's only son.
Kiya was at the home of her maternal grandparents in the Cantonment area and was playing on the roof when the accident happened. The child sustained 60 per cent burns.
“The child was playing with Diwali’s earthen lamps on the roof with other children in the afternoon when somehow her clothes caught fire," Abhishek Shukla, Joshi's media coordinator, told Hindustan Times.
The child was to be shifted to Delhi via air ambulance but succumbed to her injuries by 2am on Tuesday. Hindustan Times reported Joshi "had spoken to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and UP CM Yogi Adityanath to get the child airlifted” to Delhi for treatment.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was quoted by NDTV as saying, "The child must have been playing and I have been told she was burnt because of that. We had fixed getting her shifted to Delhi but we did not expect such news. I am shocked and pained at the loss. If people are careful, things will not come to this."
Rita Bahaguna Joshi is the daughter of H.N. Bahaguna, a veteran Congress leader who was chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. She had been president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress unit for several years. Joshi joined the BJP in 2016 and served as a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet.
