Siddu birthday bash: Mammoth turnout overwhelms arrangements

The massive turnout of people for Siddaramaiah’s 75th birthday celebrations - ‘Amruta mahotsava’ - at Shamanur palace ground at old Kundawada here, rendered the arrangements inadequate on Wednesday.

Vehicles ferrying people from various parts of the state, including Congress legislators, former legislators and leaders were stranded on the Davangere-Harihar stretch of NH-48 since early morning, forcing people to walk for more than four to five km to reach the venue. Lakhs of people attended the event.

The absence of adequate traffic police personnel worsened the situation.

Many leaders alighted from their vehicles and walked towards the venue to oversee the arrangements.

The car ferrying Congress leader B L Shankar took over two hours to reach the venue from the hotel where he stayed, a distance of less than 10 km.

Over 1,500 people prepared pulav, bisibele bath, Mysore Pak and curd rice to feed over four lakh people for lunch.

But the turnout of people was more than anticipated and this led to chaos at the food counters.

Some people climbed the tables to get plates and police intervened to control the mob. Noticing the huge crowd, many people chose not go there.

As people from various parts of the state in general and from north Karnataka, in particular, started heading towards the venue since late on Tuesday night, over 100 traffic police personnel from Bengaluru were called into service.

Though Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was slated to reach the venue from Chitradurga after meeting seers of various mutts at 1 pm, he could not reach on time as vehicles had been parked on the Harihar-Davangere stretch of NH-48 up to ten km.

Superintendent of Police C B Rishyanth had to literally came on to the road to ensure that the vehicle ferrying Rahul, KPCC president D K Shivakumar and Congress leaders K C Venugopal, B K Hariprasad, Eshwar Khandre reached the venue. At last, Rahul reached the venue at 2.50 pm. He was slated to leave Dvangere at 3:00pm. His vehicle was stranded on the way for nearly two hours.

Though vacant sites and open fields near the venue had been reserved for parking of buses, cars and two-wheelers, they proved too inadequate.

Buses, jeeps and cars had been parked on both sides of the road. The vehicles plied on alternative roads.