Over two week long Saifai festival, the annual cultural event in the home town of the first family of the Samajwadi party in Etawah district concluded on Monday. The concluding day was marked by the performance by the stars from the bollywood.
The bollywood stars included the star couple Saif Ali Khan and Karnna Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, sonakshi sinha, Parineeti Kapoor, Kritika Kamra, Tiger Shroff, Shraddha kapoor, Eli Avram, Karishma Tanna, Neha Sharma, Bhoomi Trivedi, Gurumeet Singh and ayushman Khurana along with singers Javed Ali and Mika.
Besides the performance by the bollywood stars and cultural events tournaments of various sports were also held during the festival. The two weeklong festivals began on December 26 with the installation of the statue of Hanuman ji. The major sport event during the festival were cycle marathon on January 9. Volleyball tournament, badminton tournament and India Gramin cricket league were other sports event during the festival. The major events of the festival include magic show, folk song show by local artists, fireworks blood donation camp and free medical camp, wrestling, magic show, Kavi sammelan and Ghazal programme by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan of Pakistan.
Samajwadi party president Mulayam Singh Yadav had inaugurated the festival on December 26. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was scheduled to inaugurate the festival but he skipped the inaugural function. CM was said to be angry with the party leadership over the unceremonious expulsion of three youth leaders of the party for their alleged anti party activities during the panchyat elections. CM had also skipped the Indian Gramin cricket league tournament, his pet project, he himself had inaugurated in lucknow in April last year.
The Saifiar festival was started in 1997, by the then block pramukh of Saifai, Ranveer Singh Yadav, to celebrate the art and culture of the region. Ranvir Singh cousin of the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav died an untimely death in 2002. Thus the festival was not held in 2002 as a mark of respect for him. later the festival was named as Ranvir Singh Smriti Saifar mahotsav. Since then Saifai festival is organized every year in the memory of Ranvir Singh, nephew of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Mainpuri MP Tej Pratap Yadav is the son of Ranvir Singh Yadav.