Modi to attend Janata Parivar’s wedding in Saifai

Now, if the patriarch of one family is Mulayam Singh Yadav and the other Lalu Prasad, you can also add 3,000 policemen, including 12 IPS-rank officers, five “super ambulances” and 500 government vehicles.

And all this for just one day.

On Saturday, all those who matter in Uttar Pradesh and outside will be in Saifai, the home town of Mulayam and his son and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, to either attend or help organise the “Tilak” ceremony of the Samajwadi Party president’s grand-nephew Tej Pratap Singh who is getting married to the RJD chief’s youngest daughter Raj Lakshmi.

Apart from the ritual, all eyes will be on the main guest who will arrive in a helicopter from Agra on Saturday – Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Others on top of the list are Home Minister Rajnath Singh, West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh, Bollywood stars  Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan, industrialist Anil Ambani, and Mulayam’s former confidant Amar Singh.
UP Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan and DGP AK Jain have been supervising the arrangements for over a week now, with the RJD first family and their entourage arriving at the Saifai International Stadium at 5 pm on Friday in a fleet of buses and SUVs for the ceremony ahead of the wedding in Delhi on February 26.

Supervising Ranjan and Jain are Mulayam’s brothers Shivpal Singh Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav, and his nephews, Badaun MP Dharmendra Yadav and Anshul Yadav, who will be in charge at the Swiss cottages and the Safai Mahotsav pandal, the venue.
Modi, who is expected to be in Saifai for about two hours, will be escorted by road to the VVIP guest house of the UP Power Transmission Corporation Limited, before making a short appearance during the ceremony.

And now, the details.
The bride’s relatives and senior RJD leaders are staying in the Swiss cottages while RJD workers are being put up in the “ordinary cottages” erected on the ground of the Choudhary Charan Singh PG College.

The college, owned by Shivpal Singh Yadav, had suspended regular classes to ensure that all arrangements were in place. “Hundreds of temporary toilets and bathrooms have been set up on the compound. The ground can accommodate upto 1,500 persons,” said an organiser at the venue.
Almost all the hotels in Etawah district have put up “no vacancy” boards, and an SP leader claimed that guests were also being lodged at hotels in Mainpuri, Agra, Ferozabad and other adjoining districts.

The remaining guests are being accommodated in the nearly half-a-dozen government guest houses managed by different departments in Saifai.

The “feast” will begin at 8am on Saturday, an organiser said, adding that the menu remained “a secret”.

But workers at the massive kitchen said they would serve nearly 100 varieties of dishes with the main attraction being “ulda poori”, an Etawah speciality rich in dry fruits that is kept in an earthen pot and buried under the soil for three days before being served. The cooking staff has been sourced from Agra, Ferozabad, Etawah and other adjoining areas.

“One district alone cannot supply the workers for over a lakh of people. Look at the kitchen, it looks like a giant market with mounds of vegetables and hundreds of LPG cylinders lined up,” a worker said.

As for the massive “German hangars”, a local SP leader said, “They are special because they are water and fire-proof. If there is a fire, the fabric just turns into ash, there is no risk. One of them is reserved for women.”

Food will be served for nearly 5,000 VIPs at S S Memorial School, also owned by Shivpal. “Entry will be restricted. We have brought the best cooks from our region. The dishes are the same but there will be more varieties,” said a representative of Dharmendra Yadav.
He added that chefs from five-star hotels in Delhi and Mumbai will prepare food for the VIPs, who will also be served Bihari specialties such as “baati chokha” and “litti”. For Modi, there are Gujarati dishes.

Finally, the security cover. Police personnel from 30 districts have been summoned to Saifai. And apart from the IPS-rank officials, 16 ASPs, 32 COs, 60 Inspectors, 250 SIs, 1,500 constables and 12 companies of PAC are among those in action.

Then again, with the threat of swine flu in the air, arrangements have been at the Saifai Community Health Centre to combat any scare. And apart from the “super ambulances”, advanced life-saving equipment and cardiologists from a private hospital in Kanpur are also in place.