After a stampede during Puri’s Rath Yatra that claimed the lives of at least three people and injured several, Odisha Congress chief Bhakta Charan Das criticised poor planning and VIP culture. He said, "VIPs came between God...and devotees...nothing has happened to VIPs...I was also there...nothing happened to me." "The Rath Yatra must be devotee-centric, which it wasn't," he added.