SRINAGAR, India, 30 March 2008 — Asia’s first and biggest tulip garden nestling at the foot of Zarbarwan Hill in Kashmir’s summer capital of Srinagar was dedicated to the people by Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi yesterday.
The event also saw renaming of the sprawling garden after assassinated Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi’s mother-in-law Indira Gandhi.
Though the garden will be thrown open to the public next week, tourists have started flocking to the place, sporting tulips patterned on the famous tulip gardens of the Netherlands.
Gandhi flew into Srinagar yesterday morning especially to open the garden on Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s insistence. Addressing a function on the occasion, Gandhi said the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had great love and affection for Kashmir. She recalled the “memorable holidays she spent with her family in Kashmir.” “With the improvement in the security situation, more and more people will visit Kashmir,” she hoped.
The garden, according to local officials, will be in full bloom next week. The early blooming tulips have already sprouted. With almond trees in full bloom in the background, there is a rash of colors.
The department of floriculture, which has raised the garden, has been literally burning the midnight oil to prepare it for yesterday’s opening.
