Puri: Following claims of mismanagement during the Rath Yatra in Puri, opposition parties in Odisha have called for a judicial inquiry, accusing the BJP-led government of concealing details regarding the casualties that occurred during the event.
During a press briefing, BJD vice-president Sanjay Das Burma stated that the government failed to reveal the actual circumstances surrounding the deaths and injuries reported during the festival.
He criticized Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling for misleading the public by attributing the deaths to heart attacks and suffocation rather than acknowledging a ‘stampede-like situation.’
“The state government has not disclosed what really happened during the Rath Yatra. No official updates have been shared regarding the fatalities or injuries. The BJP government is doing everything possible to conceal the incident,” Das Burma claimed.
He alleged that four devotees who were critically injured were admitted to Puri Hospital, with three of them later succumbing to their injuries, while over 350 others were reported injured.
Das Burma reiterated the demand for a judicial investigation, insisting that the government was unwilling to recognize the incident as a stampede despite the number of casualties.
BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty also criticized the health and law departments, arguing that poor management of the large crowd led to a ‘stampede-like situation.’
He further asserted that postmortem reports had confirmed stampede as the cause of death, contradicting the health minister’s claims attributing the fatalities to other causes.
Congress leader SS Saluja called for Rs 50 lakh in compensation for the families of the deceased and an SIT investigation overseen by a sitting high court judge.
Simultaneously, the state government announced financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) for the families of two devotees who lost their lives during the Rath Yatra in Puri.
The Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) shared on social media that CM Mohan Charan Majhi expressed condolences for the deaths of Anil Das from Cuttack and Ashok Subare Raikar from Mumbai.
Earlier, the CMO reported that an unprecedented influx of devotees, combined with persistent rain, resulted in incidents of fatigue, dehydration, suffocation, and other health issues during the festival.
According to the government, seven devotees fell ill and were promptly taken to hospitals, where one elderly man died and another suffered a fatal cardiac arrest in what was described as an unrelated incident.
The state government maintained that the overall management of the Rath Yatra was ‘peaceful, orderly, and well-managed,’ asserting that there was no stampede or failure in crowd control.
