'Busy' Akhilesh hits out at 'politics on stampede' as he visits victims two days after the tragedy
Two days after a stampede at Allahabad railway station killed 36 devotees on their way back from Maha Kumbh, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, visited the place on Tuesday and met the injured.
Not in a mood to take questions, Akhilesh, who was busy over the past few days allocating portfolios to his newly-appointed ministers and bureaucratic transfers, said: "I don't want to say much about the incident except that it doesn't sound good if we do politics on such issues."
However, he blamed Union railway minister Pawan Bansal for doing politics over the dead.
At last: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav meets a stampede victim in a hospital in Allahabad
The CM claimed that Bansal was playing petty politics by alleging that the crowd was allowed by the Allahabad administration to reach the railway station from all sides.
But despite the state expecting over 2.5 crore people to congregate in Allahabad on Sunday, the CM and his team were engrossed in changing portfolios and did not hold any meetings to take stock of the situation in Maha Kumbh.
On Tuesday, Akhilesh met the injured and handed a cheque of Rs 1 lakh to each of them.
Earlier, the Allahabad district administration had given each of the injured Rs 5,000 for their immediate needs.
The CM also announced that the compensation for the next of kin of the deceased has been raised from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh, and that the injured would be given an additional Rs 1 lakh.
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