The ruling party’s silent rally led by the Chief Minister from Anna Salai to Jayalalithaa’s memorial on Marina Beach threw traffic out of gear in the heart of the city on Wednesday.
While the rally taken out by the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues started from Anna statue around 10.45 a.m, the roads started to get clogged by 10 a.m. itself.
After the ruling party, the rival faction, AMMK, led by T.T.V. Dhinakaran, took out a rally along the same route around noon to Jayalalithaa’s memorial.
At least three ambulances were stuck in the jams created by the two parties on the eve of the late AIADMK leader’s second death anniversary. While motorists blamed the city police for poor traffic management, the police claimed that the delayed arrival of thousands of cadre in private vehicles led to the chaos.
“Partymen will never change. They don’t have the courtesy to give way to an ambulance,” said an ambulance driver. It took him nearly 25 minutes to reach Bata Junction from Spencers Plaza with a patient.
For thousands of commuters it took over an hour to cover short distances, like from Egmore to Gemini Flyover, which usually takes about 10-15 minutes.
K. Ganesan, who runs a small-scale business unit, said that it took nearly 45 minutes for him to get down the Gandhi Irwin bridge and reach Poonamallee High Road. “Not even a single policeman was present there on the bridge,” he said. It was not just motorists, even the traffic policemen were irked by the poor planning. “If diversions had been announced, many would have opted for public transport or would have started early for work,” said a policeman.
Though the Chennai traffic police held a meeting on Tuesday to manage the situation, they did not announce any diversion. They had planned to enforce last-minute diversions and that too if necessary. Over 1,000 traffic policemen and armed reserve personnel were deployed to manage the situation, sources said.
Once the procession started with Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Paneerselvam, along with other leaders, all wearing black shirts, in the lead, the traffic came to a halt on Anna Salai and Poonamallee High Road. Smaller roads were clogged too. “It took me nearly two hours to reach my college on Cathedral Road from Egmore. Roads were choked,” said S. Ayesha, a student.
Trading blame
Many took to social media to vent their anger. Some posts accused the politicians of creating chaos by bringing cadre to the city just to show off and some wondered if the police had sufficient manpower to manage the traffic problem.
The traffic police claimed the confusion was due to the cadre. According to the police, 25,000 persons from both parties took part in the rallies.
“More than 50% of the cadre arrived late and many of them got down from buses and autos in the middle of the road and started walking. This worsened the situation,” said a police officer. Next time, stringent measures would be in place to prevent chaos, he added.