Hyderabad: The oath-taking ceremony at LB stadium that led to traffic blockades at the venue and main thoroughfares much later in the day. At the event, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Telangana affairs incharge B. Manickam Tagore, top party leaders and MLAs were forced to walk to the venue.
It is learnt that Governor Tamilisai Soundarajan’s convoy was caught in the chaos near the Ravindra Bharathi junction. Cops rushed to the spot and cleared the way for the convoy to proceed.
P. Jayakrishna, an advocate from Habsiguda, said that it took close to an hour to travel from Uppal to Mettuguda during the non-peak hours. “Understandably the flow will be definitely high, but the police were supposed to regulate it. They were hardly seen around,” he said.
P. Gopal from Ramnagar said that there were traffic jams from as early as 11 am but nothing was done to regulate it.
Hyderabad Traffic police chief G. Sudheer Babu said that since it was the first time the party had come to power in Telangana, several people came out voluntarily to witness the event. The crowd was three times more than the stadium’s capacity. As a result, several were standing on the roads outside the stadium and watched the swearing- in on LCD screens. Being a working day, and the event happening during working hours added to the situation, he added.
