NewzVille Desk
The Congress today demanded resignation of the Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Deputy Chief Minister Pravati Parida holding them responsible for the stampede during the Rath Yatra which left several people dead and several others injured. The party also demanded a judicial probe into the entire incident.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi today, senior Congress leaders Saptagiri Ulaka and Arabinda Das accused the government of turning a sacred event into a VIP spectacle, which ultimately led to the stampede. The party demanded “full disclosure of the number of deaths so that families can identify their loved ones and perform their last rites with dignity”.
“The BJP government turned Odisha’s holiest festival into a private event for billionaires, cronies, and camera crews, at the cost of ordinary devotees”, the leaders observed, charging the BJP with defiling the sacred yatra by “priortising Adani over Mahaprabhu Jagannath”.
The Congress leaders said that never in living memory have devotees seen the Lord’s chariot dishonored by delay or negligence, until this year, and not because of some calamity, but because of the BJP government.
The Congress leader said that the BJP government of Odisha has made history by reducing the sacred Rath Yatra of Mahaprabhu Jagannath into a stage-managed political ‘tamasha’ that ended in a stampede, sorrow, and disgrace. “This is not mismanagement. This is desecration”, they remarked.
Ulaka and Das stated that rituals were arbitrarily rescheduled. They questioned what was so demanding that the government resorted to keeping Lord Jagannath waiting for one whole day. They further asked – for which VIP was Lord Jagannath made to wait; was it Gautam Adani?
They accused the BJP government of not just mismanaging the event, but also insulting the Oriya people and bringing shame to their cultural pride. “Our homes run on the blessings of Mahaprabhu Jagannath. But the homes of BJP leaders run on the blessings of Adani. For the BJP, Adani is bigger than Lord Jagannath”, they remarked.
They demanded that those who have died should be given financial assistance of ₹50 lakh, and those who are seriously injured should be given ₹25 lakh.
