Left with a difficult option, the J-K Tourism Dept has chosen Pahalgam over Gulmarg as the venue for the New Year carnival this time. This would be the first time that Pahalgam, the CM’s Assembly constituency, will be hosting the carnival. The State Tourism Department has been caught in a dilemma as Pahalgam is the Assembly constituency of CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed while Gulmarg is that of Tourism Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir. ‘‘The department has despatched invitations to Amitabh Bachchan, Sunil Dutt, Aishwarya Rai, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rohit Bal, but we are yet to get any confirmation,’’ said Farooq A. Shah, senior tourism officer. Though Tourism Department officials maintain that they only wanted to add ‘‘one more’’ destination on Kashmir’s winter calendar, the rationale behind choosing Pahalgam — instead of Gulmarg, the traditional venue of the carnival — is obvious. Besides, Pahalgam is not just the CM’s Assembly constituency but also the first Assembly segment in the Valley from where has won an election in his decades-old political career. Saleem Beigh, director-General of the Tourism Department, said, ‘‘There is no politics involved in holding the new year’s programme at Pahalgam. We just want to inform the tourists that there is one more winter destination besides Gulmarg’’. ‘‘If they wanted to add any tourist destination in their winter itinerary, Sonamarg should have come first,’’ said a former tourism director-general on the condition of anonymity.
