DURING ‘RAJA YOGA’ RANIL WICKREMESINGHE ATTENDING WEDDING OF INDIAN TYCOONS WHO HAVE MONEY TO BURN

By Walter Jayawardhana

During a time some astrologers reportedly predicted Raja Yoga for Sri Lanka’s former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and even toppling the present government of Sri Lanka and capturing power during the month of April he is indeed enjoying a kind of raja yoga by participating in a lavish wedding with powerless former Maharaja’s of India where millions of dollars are spent in an impoverished country merely for a three day ceremony.

Ranil Wickremesinghe is in India to participate in the lavish wedding of Nepali business tycoon Binod Chaudhary's son with businessman Ashok Mittal's daughter where Mharajahs and powerless former Prime Ministers have been invited to a ceremony held in the tropical and beautiful resort of Goa.

The wedding caught the headlines since millions of dollars are lavishly spent in this country where millions of people live below poverty levels and partly in starvation and sometimes live on streets.

The three day wedding ceremony that would be held in three five star hotels includes a guest list of former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur, Maharaja S P Gaekwad and Asha Raje of Baroda and Steve and Nicky Fitzgerald of South Africa, who head the world’s largest wildlife hospitality company.

Maharaja Arvind Singh of Udaipur, Nepal’s former Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh, former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, actor-MP Vinod Khanna, media baron Subhash Chandra and Tamil superstar Rajinikanth will also attend the marriage, sources said.

Strangely, no body very prominent and in power is among the list and majority of them are former rulers who would most probably would never come back to rule like the former Maha rajas. .
The exchange of rings between Nirvana, the son of Chaudhary, and Swasti, the daughter of Mittal, was scheduled for April 19 and the Rajasthani-style wedding for the next day.

The Chaudhary family manages the Chaudhary Group that is a conglomerate of over 40 businesses involved in joint ventures, collaborations and associations with some of the leading business houses of India and the world, a public relations company who handled the publicity said.

Mittal is the first cousin of steel tycoon L N Mittal, and hailed as the richest Indian in the world.
On April 19, the pre-wedding rituals was scheduled to start with ‘mehandi’ followed by the ring ceremony. Renowned singer Illa Arun would be performing at the `mehandi’ while model-actors Malaika Arora Khan and Sophie Chowdhury and Shamak Davar Troupe would perform at the ‘sangeet’., according to the pre-publicity issued by the agency Ravindra Jain has composed special music for the wedding, which will have Rajwada (palace) as the main theme, the sources said. “Planning for the wedding started more than a year ago. It is a momentous task since creating such a theme requires the decor, food and entertainment to be imported,” an official of the public relations agency handling the wedding further said.