More than 1.3 crore devotees took the holy dip at the Mahakumbh on Maghi Purnima till 10am on Wednesday, the Uttar Pradesh government has claimed.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath said he was extra alert to ensure peaceful conduct of rituals along the Ganga and the Yamuna.

There were, however, reports that devotees on their way to Allahabad in their vehicles had to wait for entry to the city for 24 hours.

“Every road in the Mela area and Allahabad city is flooded with devotees. They walk up to 30km to reach the river banks and take the holy dip. All roads which lead to Allahabad have been blocked. Thousands of devotees who wanted to arrive here from Varanasi, Lucknow and Ayodhya are stranded outside the city. There are hundreds of vehicles standing there and waiting for passage,” said a local journalist.

“Despite the government’s claim that the Mela area has been declared a no-vehicle zone, we saw actor Suniel Shetty going to the Sangam in a car along with half a dozen government vehicles in his convoy,” he added.

Uttar Pradesh director-general of police Prashant Kumar said in Lucknow: “There are occasions when the crowd surge is expectedly high but things become normal quickly. One-third of India’s population has taken bath at the Sangam in the last 30 days. Today, over 1.3 crore devotees had taken the holy dip till 10am.”

Trying to suggest that the stampede, which claimed several lives at the Mahakumbh on January 29, was just an unfortunate accident, the state top cop said: “Our emergency services had worked well on Mauni Amavasya
and admitted the injured persons to hospitals within 15 minutes.”

A large number of devotees had died in the stampede on Mauni Amavasya allegedly because the police had blocked all the pontoon bridges over the river to give a clean passage to VVIPs.

Suggesting he is more alert now, Adityanath said: “I was monitoring the arrangements at the Mahakumbh since 4am.” The chief minister was addressing a gathering in Lucknow on the occasion of the death anniversary of poet-saint Guru Ravidas.

Urban development department director Anuj Kumar Jha, who is camping at the Mahakumbh, told reporters: “The Maghi Purnima bath passed without hassle. Our entire team is successfully managing everything here.”