A silent procession taken out in memory of former Chief Minister and general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Jayalalithaa by the party cadre threw vehicular traffic in the city out of gear on Thursday.
The assembling of a large number of cadre and blocking ofWest Veli Street, Kattabomman statue junction and parts of Netaji Road either slowed down the peak hour traffic or forced diversion of vehicles near the busy Periyar bus stand.
While the cadre started to gather at Kattabomman junction from around 4.30 p.m. the delayed start of the procession from the junction upto West Masi Street-North Masi Street junction held up the traffic for most part of the evening,
With works for Periyar bus stand and Bharatiyar Shopping Complex bus stand already underway, making the area congested, the procession only made it more chaotic.
Though the procession began around 6.30 p.m with a two-hour delay. the police had blocked traffic on Netaji Road, West Masi Street and parts of North Masi Street, compounding the woes of road users.
Even pedestrians, especially tourists, going to Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple suffered a lot.
Gridlock
The traffic jam had a cascading effect with a gridlock on arterial roads even beyond 8 p.m. Vehicles could only crawl on all arms of Ellis Nagar bridge. People going to catch trains at railway station were caught in the traffic jam. Among the hundreds of vehicles caught in the traffic jam were many ambulances.
Minister for Cooperation Sellur K. Raju, Madurai North MLA V.V.Rajan Chellappa and former MP R. Gopalakrishnan took part in the procession.
The day also saw the unveiling of a newly-installed statue of Jayalalithaa at the traffic island in K.K. Nagar.
