Bengaluru, 22 Aug

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said 20 stampedes took place in the BJP-ruled states, and blamed "mass hysteria" for the Chinnaswamy stadium incident in June that killed 11 people.

Replying to a discussion in the Legislative Assembly on the 4 June stampede, the Chief Minister read out the list of stampedes starting from the one that occurred on 3 August, 2008, at Naina Devi temple in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh, when Prem Singh Dhumal was the CM, followed by the stampede in Jodhpur in 2008, which killed 250 people.

The stampedes he referred to include the one that had taken place in Ratangarh in 2013, Haridwar in 2021, Sehore in MP in 2023, and Hathras in UP, in which 121 people were killed in 2024.

He also spoke about the Prayagraj stampede during Kumbh Mela in January this year that claimed the lives of 39 people. CM also talked about the Gujarat Morbi bridge collapse in 2022 in which 135 people were killed.

"Did Yogi Adityanath resign as UP CM?" after Kumbh Mela stampede in Prayagraj, in which 39 people were killed, asked Siddaramaiah.

"In my 42 years of political life, such an incident never took place(while in power). I had never seen 11 people dying in a stampede. I am pained. I expressed my sorrow the same day," the Chief Minister said.

He said people perceived RCB's victory in the IPL match as Bengaluru's pride. The mass hysteria created by it was behind the stampede.

"We sometimes have to bow to the people’s expectations in democracy. That’s the sign of democracy," Siddaramaiah said, noting that he had to attend the victory celebration of RCB.