BJP leaders, ministers attend wedding of Amit Shah's son

AHMEDABAD: Star-studded, albeit muted. That’s how the wedding of BJP supremo Amit Shah’s son turned out to be on the day his party suffered its first electoral rout since the general elections of May 2014. India’s business and political elite were in full attendance at the marriage of Shah’s only son Jay in with Rishitaa, the daughter of a local builder at the Ahmedabad YMCA , barely a kilometre from the local BJP headquarters. The 2,000 strong guest list included Mukesh and Nita Ambani, Gautam Adani, Baba Ramdev, Rajnath Singh, Piyush Goyal, Anandiben Patel, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, and Jharkhand CM Raghuvar Das

But the wedding became a low-decibel, almost somber affair as the political picture of Delhi became clear. While there were provisions for fireworks and ‘band-baja’, guests were asked not to indulge in any extravaganza, at least, not in the public eye. Even the three-horse carriage bought in remained unused

There was no rollback on hospitality. Guests feasted on cuisine served by a local caterer that included paneer tikka, lilva ni kachori, spring rolls and a wide range of sweet dishes such as jalebi-rabdi, jamuns to sitafal ice cream, even as 25 marshals guarded the venue.

Shah, who had been aggressively campaigning in New Delhi all these days, chose to keep a low profile He kept away from the photographers, in stark contrast to his confident self, flashing the victory symbol at public gatherings in a run up to the polls.

According to sources, the scale of the defeat forced Shah and some of the top leaders of the party, who were attending the wedding, to go into a huddle at the the marriage venue to decide whether or not to face the media or wish Kejriwal on his victory. The leaders finally concluded that they would follow the footsteps of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this matter. Rajnath Singh, for instance, congratulated AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal for his victory.