LUCKNOW: Amid the condemnation of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s statement over Mahakumbh by the Sant Samaj and the BJP, former UP CM and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, on Wednesday, backed her for accusing Yogi Adityanath government of mismanagement in the congregation and turning it into a “Mrityu Kumbh”.
While interacting with media persons here on Wednesday, the SP chief towed the line of West Bengal CM accusing the state dispensation of hiding the deaths and people missing in Mahakumbh.
Charging the Yogi government with poor management and “bad arrangements” in Mahakumbh, Akhilesh alleged that there was “large-scale corruption” involved in it. “What Mamata Banerjee said is correct. People from West Bengal have also lost their lives. A large number of people from Bengal and other states have died. FIRs are not even being registered,” Yadav said.
He added that devotees had been thronging Kumbh for centuries. “Who was responsible for the arrangements for this event? When the (UP) chief minister (Yogi Adityanath) said that arrangements had been made for 100 crore people, people got more confident. When he invited celebrities and other famous people, people became even more confident that the arrangements would be good. However, that did not happen. BJP is taking advantage of the sentiments of the people. This Kumbh has the highest number of missing persons cases, the highest number of deaths, and the highest number of people falling ill,” he added.
On Tuesday, speaking in the West Bengal legislative assembly, Mamata Banerjee had claimed that Mahakumbh had turned into a dungeon of death. “You said 30 people died but the fact is thousands died, and you threw the bodies in the river,” Banerjee had alleged.
She also alleged that the bodies of the Bengal residents who died in Prayagraj were not sent for postmortem by the Uttar Pradesh government. Accusing the BJP of “selling religion,” she alleged that the Maha Kumbh was organised “to make money.”
Akhilesh Yadav said: “These are the people who are destroying things, these are the people who are doing a great scam in Mahakumbh. They are using such language to divert people from the bad arrangements in the Kumbh. The chief minister is also a Yogi. We trust all our saints and Yogis because they speak the truth. This is the chief minister who wants to hide the incident that happened in front of millions of eyes.”
Akhilesh Yadav claimed that corruption had taken place in Mahakumbh on a large scale. “On doing an investigation, the truth of the biggest scam done in toilets will come out. It is being heard that several hundred crores have been swindled in the Mahakumbh. The language of the CM has changed to hide the great corruption and great failure in this Mahakumbh,” he added.