The tragic stampede incident that took place on Wednesday night in Tirupati, when the devotees were all getting ready for Vaikuntha Ekadashi darshan, has shocked everyone. The death of six people in the queue for Vaikuntha Dwara Darshan tickets has shocked everyone.
Senior officials admitted that this was the result of absence of coordination among top three executives at TTD. They are Trust Board Chairman BR Naidu, EO Shyamala Rao and Additional EO Venkayya Choudhary, who are failing in acting as a team.
On the one hand, Chairman BR Naidu announced that a large number of devotees are likely to come and that all precautions should be taken. He lamented in front of the media that an unfortunate incident took place despite the fact that security arrangements were being made with 5000 personnel.
TTD sources say that there is no coordination between the Chairman, EO Shyamala Rao and Additional EO Venkaiah Chowdhury. There are criticisms that the District Collector, who is supposed to work in coordination with the TTD officials during such massive gatherings, does not seem to care about these things.
Observers recall that the government machinery which was seen pro-active during a private event of the Game Changer movie pre-release event, is practically mum at Tirupati. In Rajahmundry, the district officials along with Cinematography Minister Kandula Durgesh went to the venue and inspected all the arrangements.
But they say that there is no record of the government paying any attention to whether the arrangements for the Vaikuntha Dwara Darshan held in Tirumala every year were proper or not. An official commented that it would have been better if the government had paid at least some of the attention shown in the case of the Game Changer movie on the arrangements for the Vaikuntha Darshan in Tirumala.
The Chief Minister Chadnrababu Naidu, who inspected the area where the stampede took place in Bairagipatteda, expressed his deep anger at the Collector, SP and the TTD officials. He said that this is not a mistake that should be forgiven. He questioned the officials about what steps they had taken in advance to control the stampede at the ticket distribution center. However, surprisingly the Chief Minister did not announce any stern action against senior officials.