Tirupati Stampede: A Tragedy That Demands Action, Not Politics

What happened in Tirupati last night was an extremely unfortunate incident as a stampede situation at the Vaikunta Darshan ticket complex claimed 6 lives while leaving many other injured. Chief minister Chandrababu has already sent his cabinet ministers to assess the situation and stand by the victims. A financial remedy of Rs 25 lakh has also been announced to the victims.

While no one can debate the fact that what happened last night was extremely gutting and unfortunate, it is sad to see ugly politics being engulfed into the sensitive situation.

Former CM Jagan Reddy is arriving at the premises to console the families of the victims. This is happening shortly after chief minister, Chandrababu announced that he will be there by the side of the affected families.

While this might be a standard practice, what’s happening beyond that is becoming a cause of concern. A section of social media groups with vested interests are starting to spread fake videos to escalate the sensitive situation. The attempt is clear to show the TTD and AP government in bad light. The audacity to spread fake videos of people suffering at this hour of crisis is not comprehensible.

On top of that, certain groups are sharing fabricated and out of context videos to show that TTD is valuing VIPs far more than commoners. This is again a vested narrative surrounding the holy Tirumala and that too at a sensitive moment when lives were lost and people got injured.

Fundamentally speaking, the new chairman of TTD board, BR Naidu had taken a largely public-friendly approach right from the day he took charge. In fact, he took the call to shut down the VIP break Darshan program for the next 10 days in order to facilitate the common pilgrims who had come in big numbers to get the Vaikunta Darshan.

Even in general sense, a positive perception was being built by the new TTD board with the enhanced sanitary measures, time-sensitive queue systems, bettering of laddu quality, and other aspects. While this is happening on one hand, a political group is looking to spread their own narratives at a time of crisis when an unfortunate and unintended incident claimed the lives of people.

Tirumala must be left out of politics at all costs but sadly, due to the desperate attempts of certain vested groups, this is being distorted. Rather than sympathising with the families and helping with the relief operations, attempting to do politics is not a good sign.