A program to distribute ration on the occasion of Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s birthday on Friday led to chaos here with people indulging in looting.
A video of the melee, during which social distancing was thrown to the wind, went viral on social media.
The program had been organized by BJP leader and former MLA Sudarshan Gupta in Banganga area for distributing ration on the occasion of Tomar’s birthday to 2,000 needy families.
Eyewitnesses said that people behaved with discipline initially, but later they lost patience and began to snatch ration packets.
The situation was later brought under control.
Gupta claimed that as long as he was there, the ration was being distributed through a token system, but after he left, some people disrupted the orderly distribution.
Opposition Congress blamed BJP leaders for the disorder.
“BJP leaders gathered a large number of people for distributing ration despite COVID-19 scare to gain cheap popularity at the cost of lives of hundreds of people,” said state Congress spokesman Neelabh Shukla.