‘Accepted Kumbh Deaths Only After PM’: Akhilesh Yadav Slams Yogi Adityanath

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the focus during Mahakumbh was on publicity and not arrangements.

Those claiming to have organised a digital Kumbh could not give digits to the casualties in the Prayagraj stampede, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in Lok Sabha today as he launched a scathing attack on the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing the House during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address, Mr Yadav said the Centre had quoted big numbers in the Union Budget. “They gave a lot of numbers in the Budget, they should also give the numbers of the dead at Mahakumbh,” he said.

Tragedy struck on the banks of the Ganga at Prayagraj when the rush for a holy dip led to a stampede on the morning of January 29. After the administration’s long silence over the number of casualties, police eventually put the number at 30 dead and 60 injured. Critics have, however, claimed that the actual figure is much higher.

Demanding an all-party meeting to discuss the Mahakumbh tragedy and arrangements, Mr Yadav demanded that a report on the casualties and arrangements be submitted in Parliament. “Those hiding the truth be punished,” he said.

“We question the double-engine government. If there is no guilty conscience, why were numbers suppressed and hidden? Hiding the truth is a crime. Who will serve the punishment for this?” he said.

The Samajwadi Party chief said the focus during the religious congregation was on publicity and not arrangements. A government’s publicity at a religious gathering is condemnable, he said. “Those claiming to have organised a Digital Kumbh could not give the digits of those killed (in the stampede). Someone lost parents, someone a daughter, someone siblings. The figure of children is still missing.”

Mr Yadav also claimed that the BJP government asked saints to cancel the shahi snan and broke an age-old tradition. “When this matter was raised, they ordered the akharas to proceed with the shahi snan. They broke the sanatan tradition,” he said.

People who came for ‘punya’ returned with the bodies of their near and dear ones, he said. “Devotees’ bodies had been found, but the government was not admitting deaths. When it was known that people had died, the government loaded a helicopter with flowers and dropped them. Which tradition is this? There were slippers, sarees. They were scraped up with earth movers, no one knows where they were thrown,” he said.

In a direct attack on Mr Adityanath, he said the Chief Minister did not express grief over the Mahakumbh stampede deaths till the President and the Prime Minister did so. “The state government accepted after 17 hours. These are people who cannot accept the truth.” 

The President’s address, he said, had the ‘same old’ points, and questioned the government’s claims of development. On the government’s Ease of Doing Business push, he said the government’s ministers rush to every investment meet. “Uttar Pradesh hosted a huge investment meet. I want to ask the double-engine government, how much of the MoUs worth Rs 40,000 crore has been implemented on the ground. Are the two engines colliding with each other?”