Kashmir is expecting a spectacle on its famed but controversial turf — Sher-eKashmir Cricket Stadium — on January 30.
The stadium is set to host the closing ceremony of the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra which will enter the Union Territory on January 19.
Some of the top Opposition leaders are likely to grace the occasion.
The crowds are expected to cheer much the same way they did four decades ago but for completely opposite reasons.
The Congress leaders said they expect a groundswell for the Yatra, ironically at a place where the crowd had cheered for the West Indies cricket team, the rivals of India team, in 1983.
AICC J&K in-charge Rajni Patil on Tuesday said the administration has granted permission for a mega rally to mark the culmination of the Yatra at SK stadium. She said leaders of 23 political parties from across the country and people from abroad were expected to take part in the rally.
“We have received permission from the Jammu and Kashmir administration for the January 30 rally at Sher-eKashmir stadium in Srinagar. The Yatra’s Jammu and Kashmir leg will be most successful with massive participation of people,” she told reporters.
Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir said the party was denied permission to hold the rally at the more spacious Bakshi Stadium.
“Sher-e-Kashmir stadium can accommodate 15,000 people at the most, although we expect many more. That is why we had applied for permission at Bakshi Stadium, which can accommodate up to 50,000. But we were told that political events are not allowed there,” Mir told The Telegraph.
Rahul Gandhi hugs a commando at the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Hoshiarpur district on Tuesday. PTI
“We expect lots of people to join the rally. Congress top leadership, including all MPs, and leaders from Opposition parties, are likely to join in addition to a large number of local people,” Mir said.
Patil said the Yatra will enter Lakhanpur (in Jammu and Kashmir) from Punjab on Thursday evening before reaching Jammu on January 23. National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut and leaders of other parties will join the Yatra in Lakhanpur.
“National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah will join the Yatra after it crosses the Banihal tunnel into Kashmir, while People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti has informed that she and her mother and daughter would also join,” she said.
The Srinagar stadium has hosted rallies of former prime ministers Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh and also Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but people in the Valley remember it more for the cricket match between India and West Indies on October 13, 1983.
Many believe the seeds of the decades-long phase of militancy were sown at the pitch that day when Kapil Dev-led India played an ODI against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies. It was the first international match hosted by the Valley. But the pro-azaadi crowd’s cheering made it feel that Kapil Dev’s team was playing outside India. Every big hit by the West Indies batsmen was cheered as was every loss of an Indian wicket.
Several youths swarmed the pitch during the lunch break and tried to dig holes in it. They were angry that India had hosted an international match in the “disputed region”.
The crowds are now expected to cheer for the Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 30. Not that the 2019 scrapping of special status has shrunk the separatist constituency.
A National Conference leader said this Yatra’s goal is “bigger,” fighting against the “hate that has gripped every cranny of the country.”