For a city grounded in the lore of lusty celebrations by its nawabs, April 12 wouldn't have seemed out of place. With the tradition zealously perpetuated by the politicians of the day, it was just another day, another show of undue extravagance in Lucknow. Only, the tragic aftermath on the eve of elections spoilt the party in the prime minister's constituency.

For the 70th birthday of Lalji Tandon, BJP leader and constituency manager for the prime minister, a function to distribute free saris worth Rs 40 each among poor women was organised by Brijendra Murari Yadav, a close supporter and historysheeter. It was a lure hard to resist because, apart from the 12,000 saris, there was the promise of a widow pension and cash as well. So clutching their children and braving the heat, nearly 15,000 women converged at a small pandal (tent enclosure), closed on all sides with a single exit point. What followed was a stampede, resulting in the death of 21 women and one child.

PICTURE OF CONCERN: (From top) Tandon gifts saris; bodies of victims; Vajpayee with the grieving relatives

"It is most tragic, unfortunate and painful," said Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee at the King George Medical College in Lucknow. He had been addressing an election rally in Jharkhand at the time and touched down at Khunti near Ranchi for another meeting before rushing to Lucknow to meet the victims' relatives. In contrast, Tandon appeared unperturbed. "The tragedy should not be politicised," he said. But not one to take chances and to curb any political after-effects, Vajpayee immediately removed Tandon as campaign manager and replaced him with S.S. Ahluwalia. Pramod Mahajan, in charge of the state affairs, and Anup Mishra, his nephew and a minister in Madhya Pradesh, were also to oversee the campaigning in Lucknow. While Mahajan initiated the fire-fighting by flying to Lucknow on April 13 and talking to the state leaders, he and Mishra will screen the poll panel to weed out other controversial members. Vajpayee also put off plans to hold a rally after filing his nomination on April 15. "The papers will be filed without pomp and pageantry and there will be no celebrations. It will be a simple and toned-down affair. A public meeting scheduled for the day has been cancelled," said BJP spokesman M.A. Naqvi.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who too rushed to the state capital cutting short his campaigning, held a closed-door meeting with Tandon and tried to play down the tragedy: "It is no time for nuktachini (criticism). It is a shocking incident and we should not play politics over the death of the poor."

The state Opposition, however, was in no mood to be appeased and demanded Tandon's arrest for violating the model code of conduct. The function was apparently held in violation of the model code of conduct and Section 144, which bans the assembly of more than five persons. The organisers-Nagrik Sewa Samiti, run by Yadav-had also failed to take permission from the administration for holding the function in a small pandal. "It is not necessary to take permission for organising birthdays or weddings. If this is the case, what will happen to our sanskar?" argued Tandon.

But as Choudhary Birendra Singh, AICC secretary and in charge of the state affairs, retorted, "Everybody knows Tandon was the prime minister's pointsman in Lucknow and was trying to bribe the poor voters by offering them saris." The BSP and Left parties too demanded legal action against Tandon, while the Janwadi Mahila Morcha burnt his effigy and laid siege to the Vidhan Sabha, demanding his arrest and prosecution on charges of mass murder.

As the protest against the violation of the code of conduct spiralled, Chief Election Commissioner T.S. Krishnamurthy asked the state chief secretary to send a report. Earlier, the Election Commission in Delhi had maintained that as Tandon was not contesting the polls, his birthday function did not come under the purview of the model code.

Meanwhile, what raised the people's hackles was the refusal of either Tandon or the BJP to claim responsibility for the incident. "Such functions are organised by individuals every year. The party has nothing to do with it. I don't go for bashes but hold welfare programmes to improve civic amenities," said Tandon.

At the function, Tandon had distributed a few saris and left; so had the security guards. Within the pandal, there were barriers to ensure that no one returned to claim two saris. As soon as Tandon left, the organisers asked those who had received the saris to leave. But as the exodus began, one of the infants fell down and was crushed. His mother started crying but the organisers instantly began throwing saris to the crowd. This caused a stampede and many women trapped among plastic chairs were crushed to death. The bodies were stuffed in buses and sent to city hospitals, where Tandon's supporters tried to dismiss the incident as heat-wave deaths and bully those who tried to raise objections. But as the news reached Vajpayee, state BJP Vice-President H.N. Dixit expressed the "party's shock" and announced an ex gratia relief of Rs 1 lakh each. The state Government also promised a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to each victim's kin, while Vajpayee announced an equal amount from the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.

The politics of birthdays is an old tradition begun in 1965 by the then chief minister C.B. Gupta. Since then, politicians have used public money or controversial friends to hold functions and offer cheap welfare measures. In 2003, Mayawati as chief minister, set new standards when she used official machinery and public funds, even withdrawing Rs 1.14 crore from the government Contingency Fund, to celebrate her birthday as Swabhiman Diwas.

Tandon's birthday had generated a controversy last year too, when the same samiti had forced private organisations to cough up "voluntary donations" and the money was used to distribute 20,000 saris. Tandon was then the urban development minister. It was Tandon again who got a laddoo weighing a record 3,000 kg to celebrate the prime minister's birthday last year.

But with the latest birthday blowout turning into a horrible mishap, party leaders are in a fix over its ramifications for the approaching polls.