Congress, BJP in blame game over Madhya Pradesh stampede

Condoling the death of more than 100 people, BJP said it is a "big tragedy" and called for steps to prevent occurrence of such tragedies in future.

The party hit out at the Congress for demanding Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's resignation over the issue, saying it is doing so as assembly elections are round the corner.

"Congress leaders from Kamal Nath to Jyotiraditya Scindia, Digvijaya Singh, Ajay Maken and Satyavrat Chaturvedi are doing politics over dead bodies. We condemn this attitude of the Congress... What needs to be discussed at the moment are the measures that should be taken to deal with it," BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.

Denouncing Congress politics on Ratangarh tragedy, he said when such an incident takes place all parties should discuss ways to avoid them in future.

"Due to the polls, Congress approach to the tragedy is political," he said.

"Ratangarh is not an isolated incidence. Every year such tragedies are happening at pilgrimages of all religions. The Centre and the states should plan out yatras taken out by followers of different religions," Javadekar said.

The party demanded that the Centre should treat frequent occurrence of such incidents as a national calamity and must plan for a "foolproof mechanism" to avoid recurrence of such incidents.

Sharing figures of such stampedes in the past, BJP said 106 lives were lost in Sabarimala tragedy in Kerala, 350 pilgrims died at Mandhara Devi in Maharashtra, 63 peoples lost their lives in Kunda in UP, 40 people died in a similar stampede in Kumbh Mela at Nasik.

At least 115 were killed and over 100 injured when a stampede broke out during Navratri festivities near a temple in Madhya Pradesh's Datia district on Sunday.