The SP leader will celebrate his birthday on January 27
LUCKNOW: It would be a dream come true for villagers of Daulatpur in Barabanki district, about 50 km from Lucknow, when the entire Bachchan clan lands in this remote village on January 27, which happens to be the Big B's friend and confidante, Samajwadi party leader Amar Singh’s birthday.
Amitabh will lay the foundation stone of a college in memory of his father, poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan. The SP’s stormy petrel is likely to use the occasion to cock a snook at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati. From all available indications, it's not going to be one simple foundation stone-laying ceremony what with the likes of SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav, former Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu, and former J&K CM Farooq Abdullah being there to kick up all the heat and dust.
Sources in the state administration confirmed that the Bachchan clan, comprising Jaya, Abhishek and Aishwarya and their VIP entourage, will fly to Daulatpur in private choppers. Bachchan’s mukhtar aam (representative) in Barabanki Vinay Kumar Shukla told reporters that the district administration was not co-operating in making of helipads, so villagers have started levelling the ground to ensure a smooth landing of the helicopters.
Amitabh is also planning to set up a hospital in memory of his mother Teji Bachchan who passed away recently. The setting up of a school and a hospital in a village with which the Bachchan family has had absolutely no links even five years ago is been seen as an obvious attempt on Bachchan’s part to salvage some of his reputation sullied in the messy land case.
Amitabh had earlier bought land in this village to prove that he was a farmer and establish his right on about 20 acres of agricultural land he had bought for a farmhouse in Maval (Pune) in 2000. Under Maharashtra’s Tenancy and Agricultural Land Act, 1963, only farmers can buy agricultural land. The Barabanki deal got caught in legal wrangles and finally the actor had to give up his claim on the land. Sources said Mayawati was planning to approach the Supreme Court o that punitive action could be initiated against the Big B.
g_deepak@dnaindia.net
