Political tourism

It’s time for package tours to Srinagar. In fact, a “package” of nine MLAs, owing allegiance to Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, have reportedly just been air-dropped into the summer capital of J&K, after doing the rounds of Bhopal and Pachmarhi. The former Union agriculture minister, having just lost his portfolio and therefore no longer focusing on the nation’s cultivation patterns, now concentrates on cultivating his own party MLAs instead. And what better way to do this, than to transport them to the banks of the Dal lake, kissed by soft breezes blowing in from the Pir Panjals?

Srinagar is certainly benefitting from the volatile politics of New Delhi and its environs. Last week, it was the battle-scarred Congress Party that sought its salubrious environment to recoup from its political losses before it girds its loins for a fresh bout of elections. And now it is the volatile situation in Uttar Pradesh that has caused the fresh migration to the state. Whether Ajit Singh will succeed in reaping the harvest of his tour-operating skills is difficult to predict at this stage. It’s only the beginning of a long and torrid summer in UP politics, as each party attempts to retain its notoriously fickle flock. BJP’s Vinay Katiyar has just hinted that the Mayawati Cabinet may be going in for further expansion to accommodate anyone tempted to stray a bit while Samajwadi Party handlers are without doubt hoping that prospects of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s cycle wheeling its way to Lucknow will be adequate to keep their MLAs immune to the affliction of political wanderlust.

For Srinagar, however, the peculiar twists and turns of national politics couldn’t come at a more opportune moment. For several months now, J&K’s political leaders have been desperately attempting to sell the state as the ultimate tourist destination. Its chief minister even visited Mumbai last year in a bid to persuade Bollywood film-makers to showcase once again their talent against the backdrop of his state’s snow-capped mountains and flowery meadows, which was the stuff of popular cinema in the relatively innocent sixties and seventies. Today, we may not have a Shammi Kapoor yahooing his way through the snow, or a Sharmila Tagore dimpling from a shikara but, hey, there’s Sonia Gandhi in an embroidered phiran and Ajit Singh’s intrepid soldiers marching their way in!