ITC Grand Bharat hotel becomes a playground for political parleys
GURUGRAM: Tucked away in the foothills of Aravallis, the ITC Grand Bharat is a relatively new hotel that came up next to the company’s iconic golf course designed by American golfing great Jack Nicklaus.
It is in Haryana, a few hours from Rajasthan’s capital by road, less than an hour from Delhi, and just about 40 minutes from the international airport in the capital.
It is quiet, private, secluded, and the approach is through one road off NH8 (the Delhi-jaipur expressway) -- all features that have endeared it in recent years to politicians and political parties wanting to safeguard their legislators from others who want to poach them -- or, housing and protecting legislators they have poached from other parties.
The area is sparsely populated, and the hotel is surrounded mostly by wasteland or farmland.
Haryana is governed by a Bharatiya Janata Party government and Jitender Bhardwaj, a spokesperson for Congress in Haryana and also a local politician from adjoining Sohna claimed that “MLAS from
Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh” have been housed at the hotel and in other hotels in Gurugram. “Local police and administrative machinery is actively used to protect the rebel MLAS from other parties.” In both Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, the BJP came to power after some Congress legislators resigned from their party , bringing down the coalition government in Karnataka in July 2019 and the Congress one in Madhya Pradesh in March.
Over the weekend, around 11-12 Congress MLAS from Rajasthan were housed in the hotel as their leader deputy CM Sachin Pilot, worked out his political future.
A large posse of Haryana police was stationed outside the hotel to prevent the media or anyone else from entering the hotel. A large group of bouncers was also deployed outside the hotel to discourage reporters.
“Outsiders can be spotted immediately as this area has a very thin population,” said Manish Khatana, a youth Congress leader, who forcefully entered the hotel when Congress MLAS from Madhya Pradesh were lodged in the hotel between March 7 to 11.
Responding to allegations leveled by Congress leaders, Raman Malik, BJP spokesperson, Haryana, said that the party was not into resort politics and if the Congress MLAS had come to the city, it was on their own accord.
HT tried to reach out from ITC Hotels through email to senior executive, company website and social media but could not elicit a reply on the matter.