The ruling Congress in Karnataka appears to be in a panic mode after a stampede claimed the lives of 11 cricket fans outside Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on June 4, a day after the stupendous victory of Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Indian Premier League that sent fans into raptures.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who took a lead in the celebrations, have taken drastic actions, including suspending Bengaluru Police Commissioner B. Dayananda, and dismissing K. Govindaraju, MLC, from the post of political secretary to the Chief Minister. This was apparently after the Congress high command took the government to task for its “mishandling of the ground situation”.
Multiple sources in the Congress told The Hindu that the party’s central leaders spoke to Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Shivakumar, who is also the KPCC president, and pulled up both leaders for allowing the celebrations without adhering to any norms.
Multiple leaders call
Embarrassed over the tragic turn of events during the RCB’s victory celebration, Congress central leaders, including AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala, and AICC general (organisation) and MP K.C. Venugopal, have reportedly spoken to the two top leaders and pointedly questioned the “hurried celebrations”.
