Asserting that the Madhya Pradesh Government's misgovernance and rampant corruption is responsible for the stampede in the temple town of Ratangarh, the
Congress Party on Monday said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should take moral responsibility for this man-made disaster.
AICC General Secretary and Communication Department in-charge Ajay Maken said the Congress Party extends its sympathies to the families of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.
"A similar incident had taken place in the Ratangarh Temple five years back in which no one was killed, but several were injured. And the Madhya Pradesh administration has not taken any lesson from it. The saddest part is that this is not a natural disaster, but a man made disaster that has taken place in Ratangarh. And it could have been stopped," said Maken.
"The Madhya Pradesh Government deploys lakhs of police personnel when there is a BJP Mahakumbh, but here there was no such deployment of the police," he added.
Maken further said it is extremely unfortunate that Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta says that he would not be able to give the exact figures and the police would be in a better position to give details of it.
"This shows the insensitivity of the Madhya Pradesh Home Minister," he added.
The Madhya Pradesh Home Minister earlier in the day told ANI in Bhopal that the situation as of now is under control, but added that he did not have the exact death toll.
The Navratra festivities ended in tragedy when 110 pilgrims, including women and children, were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede on a bridge leading to the historic Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh's Datia district yesterday.
The disaster was a repeat of the 2006 stampede when more than 50 pilgrims had got washed away falling in panic into the Sindh River off the same bridge in 2006.
The stampede was triggered by rumours that the river bridge the devotees were crossing was about to collapse.
The Madhya Pradesh Government has ordered a judicial probe into the untoward incident.
Survivors alleged that some people spread the rumor that the bridge was on the verge of collapse, resulting in panic.
