Their in-house skirmishes leaving them scarred, warring Samata Party leaders today set out from New Delhi for the holy shrine of Amarnath in the hope Shiva would set their house in order and make them ‘‘one happy family’’ again.The five Samata leaders — Defence Minister and party president George Fernandes, Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, MPs Prabhunath Singh, Arun Kumar and Basishta Narayan Singh — tried to put the party drama behind them when they hopped into an IAF plane and flew to Srinagar. From there, they will travel in a chopper before trudging on foot to the icy cave.Soon after Fernandes was elected Samata president, Prabhunath Singh’s walkout from the party meeting snowballed into a major crisis with Nitish Kumar sending his resignation to the Prime Minister who promptly tore it up. The lines had been clearly divided in the party.But putting behind all the ‘‘bad feelings,’’ the leaders decided to cement their ‘‘unity’’ by undertaking the pilgrimage together. Fernandes who travels to Amarnath every year to review the security for pilgrims — the job is largely entrusted to the Army — was apparently asked by Nitish Kumar if he could also squeeze into the aircraft. Before leaving for Amarnath, Nitish claimed he had been wanting to go on the Yatra for a long time. ‘‘And this time, I told Fernandes that he should take me along,’’ the Railway minister said. The other party members too put in similar requests and Fernandes happily obliged.The group left for Srinagar by a special IAF aircraft at 6 pm and were expected to reach Srinagar late in the night. Guests of the Army, they will be spending the night at the Corps headquarters and will leave for Panchtarni by a chopper on Saturday morning.The final 90-minute journey on foot to the cave will start from Panchtarni. By Saturday evening, they should all be back, having completed the pilgrimage.Samata Party insiders said they were all praying that the leaders would resolve remaining contentious issues enroute or at least after the darshan.
