UP govt includes Taj Mahal in calendar but leaves out Lucknow from tourism list

Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath government may have tried to make amends by including the Taj Mahal in the annual calendar of UP Tourism for 2018 but it has now stirred another controversy by excluding Lucknow from the list of tourist destinations in the calendar.

The 12-page calendar, which was released almost two and a half months earlier, as a damage control exercise after a section of BJP leaders denounced the Taj Mahal includes several tourist destinations and those having religious significance as well but there is no mention of any destination from Lucknow.

Reacting sharply to the omission, Nawab Jafar Mir Abdullah, a living Nawab of Oudh, said, “This is blasphemous because Lucknow remains a symbol of the Ganga-Jamuni culture of the state. It has monuments like Imambaras that speak of the Oudh culture and Residency that mirrors the freedom struggle. How can the government ignore Lucknow while promoting tourism?”

A retired doctor S.A.K. Kapoor, whose five generations have been living in the old city area in Lucknow, blamed lack of research by the government officials for the lapse.

“The officials are so eager to please their political bosses that they overlook facts and even change history. Officials are responsible for the Taj Mahal fiasco and now the Lucknow fiasco,” the retired doctor said.