Political Storm over Bengaluru Stampede, Congress Government Accused of Making Police Officials “Scapegoats”
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 6: The Stampede outside the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru in which 11 people were killed has generated a political storm in Karnataka with the opposition BJP accusing the Congress government in the state of making some police officials the “scapegoat” while ignoring its moral responsibility even as the Karnataka State Cricket Association held the state government responsible for the tragedy.
The state government a day after the suspension of several senior police officers, on Friday sacked the MLC K. Govindaraj from the post of Political Secretary to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah while Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Intelligence, Hemant M. Nimbalkar, was transferred out.
A government order said that the appointment of Mr Govindaraj as Political Secretary to the Chief Minister has been revoked with immediate effect. Mr Nimbalkar, however, remains ADGP and Commissioner, Department of Information and Public Relations, a post he concurrently held.
This came amidst criticism of Mr Govindaraj’s role in the celebration of IPL 2025 victory by the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), that led to the stampede. Mr Govindaraj is a sports enthusiast and administrator and has served as the president of the Karnataka Olympic Association. There were also allegations by the Opposition about “intelligence failure” in anticipating the number of fans who turned up at the event.
Sources said Mr Govindaraj lost his job because, during a key meeting at the Chief Minister’s house on Wednesday morning – hours before the stampede – he had pushed for the celebrations of the victory of the RCB to be allowed despite the police commissioner refusing to agree to three events and stating that a victory parade could not be given a go-ahead. Mr Govindaraj then persuaded the police commissioner to allow two events – at the state legislature complex, which is called the Vidhana Soudha, and the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) on Friday approached the High Court for an urgent hearing against the First Information Report (FIR) filed against it in connection with the stampede. A petition filed by KSCA president Raghuram Bhat, secretary A Shankar, and treasurer ES Jairam, argued that the FIR represented a serious miscarriage of justice and seeks to pin responsibility on the wrong parties. According to the petition, the celebration event was convened on the orders of the Karnataka government.
“Celebrating the victory was in fact at the call of the Government,” the petition said, adding that the felicitation was held at the Vidhana Soudha in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his deputy DK Shivakumar, and several Cabinet ministers. Senior bureaucrats and senior police officials were also in attendance, it said.
Interestingly, hours before the sacking and transfer orders came, Union Minister and JD (S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy had said in a press conference that Mr Govindaraj among others was “directly responsible” for the tragedy. “One must question the kind of people the Chief Minister surrounds himself with. If this government wants to retain any respect, it must remove these bad elements,” Mr Kumaraswamy had said. He had also flagged “intelligence failure.”
On Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced the decision to immediately suspend Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda, Assistant Commissioner of Police C Balakrishna, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Division) Shekhar H Tekkannavar, Additional Commissioner of Police Vikash Kumar Vikash and Circle Police Inspector of Cubbon Park Police station A K Girish. “It is found that there has been, on the face of it, substantial dereliction of duty by these officers,” the suspension order had said.
After the suspensions, the opposition BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) accused the Chief Minister of using the police officers as scapegoats to deflect responsibility from the state government. Mr Siddaramaiah, however, dismissed the allegation and accused the opposition of playing politics over the issue. “They are speaking for the sake of politics. I don’t want to do politics in this matter. Those responsible prima facie, who have not fulfilled their responsibility properly, have been suspended,” he said.
On Friday morning, the Karnataka police said they have arrested four people in connection with the stampede, including Nikhil Sosale, the head of marketing for RCB. Mr Sosale, who handles all promotional activities for the RCB, was on his way to Mumbai when he was arrested from the Bengaluru airport around 6.30 am.
Mr Sosale handles all promotional activities of the RCB and is the main link between the players and the franchise. He also handles the team’s social media handles. The remaining arrested people are members of event management company DNA Entertainment Private Limited – Sunil Mathew (Vice President, handles IPL events for DNA), Kiran and Sumanth.
Police said the arrests were made during an overnight operation carried out by the Central Crime Branch under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner of Police Akshay. The accused are likely to be handed over to the Crime Investigation Department.
The police were also looking to arrest two officials of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, but they could not be traced. The cricket body moved the Karnataka High Court, stating that it was not connected with the stampede in any way and merely rents out the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The High Court then restrained authorities from taking coercive action against the office bearers of the association till June 16.
The KSCA in its petition before the High Court placed the responsibility for crowd control and related arrangements on RCB, the event organisers, and the police. It claimed that KSCA, as an entity that merely rents out the venue for such events and governs cricket in Karnataka, was not involved in managing spectators or fan access. “The gate management and crowd management was not the responsibility of KSCA,” the petition said. “It was of RCB, the organiser, and the police.” The association alleged that attempts to frame its senior office-bearers constitute a “serious failure of justice” on the part of the police and government.
The Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara, however, contradicted the KSCA claiming that the government did not organise the celebrations at the stadium. “We did not make any request to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) franchise or the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) in this regard, and they had organised the victory celebration event. The government also felt that it should felicitate the players and be a part of the celebration because it was a Bengaluru team. That’s all,” he said.
Union Minister Hardeep Puri on Friday blamed the Bengaluru stampede deaths on a lack of planning by the Karnataka government. “I totally agree with the criticism that the BJP has levelled against that state government. You know, I come from an old school where one life lost is one life too many. And these are innocent people. You didn’t plan it, now you are trying to pass the blame on to someone else,” Mr Puri said.
Dissent is growing within the Karnataka police following the suspension of senior officers in the aftermath of the Bengaluru stampede, with many personnel believing the police are being made “scapegoats” for the tragic incident. Police constable Narasimharaju staged a protest holding a photo of Dr BR Ambedkar, symbolising his call for justice. He also wrote a letter to the Governor, requesting the cancellation of Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayanand’s suspension.
The BJP slammed the Congress government accusing the ruling party leaders of using cops as scapegoats to deflect blame. Former Karnataka Chief Minister and senior BJP leader BS Yediyurappa termed the state government’s response as “shameful,” accusing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar of abandoning their moral responsibility during the unfolding tragedy.
“It is a shameful act that the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Ministers themselves stood up and the entire government took responsibility for the system, and while celebrating RCB’s victory, they forgot their moral responsibility,” Yediyurappa said in a post on X in Kannada.
“To calm public anger, they have made five police officers, including the Police Commissioner, scapegoats. This is a dark chapter in Karunad’s history,” he added. Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly, R Ashoka, also voiced similar concerns, questioning the apparent contradictions within the Congress leadership.
“Yesterday, DK Shivakumar said the police had issued prior warnings and were not responsible. Now Siddaramaiah has suspended the Police Commissioner and several other top officials. What is going on?” Further holding the Congress leadership responsible for the stampede, he said, “It was the police only who took all the injured people and the bodies to hospitals. The police gave first aid, did everything,” he said. “Do hard work but get bad remarks in return. This is the government.”
Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge responded on Friday confirming that the officials involved had been suspended and that a magisterial inquiry had been initiated to probe the incident. “The officers who are responsible have been suspended. We have made no scapegoats… A magisterial enquiry has been ordered and our next action will be according to the findings of the enquiry,” Kharge said.
