A massive rally held by Janata Parivar in the heart of Central Delhi had a cascading effect with vehicular congestion holding the Delhiites to ransom till late on Monday.
Many commuters whom The Hindu spoke to complained of congestion on major arterial routes such as the Ring Road and the UP Link Road in addition to central locations such as ITO, Connaught Place and other arterial roads in Lutyens’ Zone.
Motorists also claimed that the traffic police were not present to regulate the traffic as the vehicles crawled on various stretches.
Ironically, police estimates put the number of attendees at the said rally called by the Samajwadi Party, the JD (U), the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Indian National Lok Dal, the Janata Dal(S) and the Samajwadi Janata Party — to around just 8,500. The SUVs and buses that brought them to the city, where parked on all the arterial roads near the venue and these were enough to disrupt traffic through the day.
“It took me close to an hour to get from the Old ITO Bridge to my office in Connaught Place – a commute that usually takes me less than half an hour,” said Zeeshan Khan (30), a private executive.
Commuters also questioned why the traffic police didn’t switch to manual traffic management given the fact that the volume of traffic was ‘considerably higher than usual’ – an allegation that the latter chose to deny.
The traffic police admitted that their helpline was flooded with complaints pertaining to congestion in and around central Delhi – especially stretches adjoining Jantar Mantar, the venue of the rally – beginning as early as 8 a.m. Commuters complained also of jams on Ferozeshah Road, Ashoka Road, Parliament Street, Mandi House and the C-Hexagon near the India Gate.
“Adequate arrangements were in place and our personnel were deployed at routes which reported most congestion for traffic management,” a traffic police officer said.
