The invitation card. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi, Oct. 26: Rural development and transport minister Anosh Ekka is set to celebrate his son’s birthday in a grand way this year too.

More than 25,000 invita- tion cards have been sent and he is expecting one-lakh guests on the 10th birth- day of his son Bivav San- desh Ekka, a student in Gurgaon’s G.D. Goenka School, tomorrow.

“I have arranged for about 125 goats for the party. My cadre and well-wishers have arranged them for the celebrations. I have been celebrating my son’s birthday since nine years but after becoming a minister, the number of my well- wishers has increased and I have invited all of them,” said the minister in Simdega, where he arranged a news conference on the eve of the birthday bash.

Simdega is one of the poorest districts in the state. It is during the birthday of the minister’s son only that Simdega, a small district town known for poverty and tribal girls sent to Delhi to work as domestic helps, witnesses such festivity.

The small district town would reverberate with Nagpuri and Hindi songs by the orchestra groups at Albert Ekka stadium that generally hosts sports or government-sponsored events.

Eyewitnesses from Sim-dega said the entire Thakurtoli locality, where Kolebira MLA Ekka has a palatial house, has been lit up and decorated with balloons and tiny bulbs.

The Albert Ekka stadium is decked up for the gala musical evening, while several huge pandals are being erected to feed people near Ekka’s residence. One of them would be reserved for VIPs.

Ekka’s bete noire Niel Tirkey, a senior Congress legislator who represents Simdega constituency, is one of the guest invited for the occasion told The Telegraph: “He has invited me, too. But I am not going to take part in the birthday bash, which is naked display of wealth,” Tirkey said.

Tirkey added that one Ashok Bhagat, a senior functionary of Jharkhand Party (Anosh) from Sisai, has arranged for 101 goats for tomorrow’s feast.

“Many more goats would be killed on the occasion. Over 200 cooks from Ranchi and Rourkela and assistants had been pressed into service,” Tirkey rued.

Ekka has extended invitation on the occasion of his son’s birthday to all in the political circle, including chief minister Shibu Soren and his deputy Sudhir Kumar Mahto.

Ekka, however, claimed that at least three of his close political friends — excise minister Kamlesh Kumar Singh, former minister Chandra Prakash Choudhary and urban development minister Harinarayan Rai — would come to grace the occasion.