As the Haryana Vikas Party MLA from Samalkha, Kartar Singh Bhadana, could not have got Calcutta's Victoria Memorial for the wedding of his daughters, Sarita and Sangeeta -- as London-based steel tycoon Laxmi Niwas Mittal did for his son's wedding -- he got a replica made in Faridabad.

Craftsmen were brought in from Calcutta to create the replica. As many as 1,500 flower pots decorated the entrance. Just for the pandal, the ruling party MLA spent around Rs 70 lakh.

There were four pandals built inside the Victoria Memorial replica. There were two more pandals built specially for the pheras inside the compound of Kartar's Sarai Khwaja residence, 500 metres from the Memorial replica.

The mega scale of the pandal was matched in the wedding too. One of the grooms came in a helicopter, hecircled over neighbouring villages dropping pamphlets detailing the ceremonies, and landed in a helipad which was created overnight. A procession of elephants joined the groom to the marriage pandal. Huge menu boards, which boasted of everything from chat to chowmein and malpua to ice-cream, had been fixed to the pillars.

The day after the weddings, rows of Fords, Santros and Gypsys were parked near his office where Bhadana sat, eating ladoos with his associates. ``Don't think that all the cars belong to me. My friends own them,'' he told The Indian Express.

Obviously he is not very happy with the publicity that the two weddings have attracted. ``In fact, the brides were not my daughters. They are my elder brother's daughters. We live in a joint family,'' says Bhadana. One from the group intervened, ``Why are you lying, boss?'' ``Shut up,'' Bhadana ordered.