As the first saffron clad column begins to walk out of Haridwar with bamboo poles on their shoulders in every July, Uttar Pradesh's politics starts a fresh argument about the past. It's no different this year. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath again has taken a shot at Akhilesh Yadav, claiming the Samajwadi Party had banned the Kanwar Yatra when it was in power and had prevented celebration of Krishna Janmashtami inside police stations and jails, but has allowed the Kanwar Yatra to be thrown rose petals at them from the air by the helicopters of his government over the Delhi-Meerut highway. It has been in the BJP's arsenal for almost a decade now and it works on every single Sawan as it combines two factors that Uttar Pradesh voters can intuit: religious sentiment and a visible, real government on the ground.

Remove the rhetoric and there's a true administrative record under the strip. In fact, under the Samajwadi Party Government (2012-2017), the Kanwar Yatra route had been partially banned in western UP on the grounds of law and order issue, an incident which the party's opponents never forgot. It's all changed since 2017. The helicopter showers by the petals over Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur and Delhi-Dehradun corridor have become an annual event and are being arranged at an estimated cost of the state exchequer of Rs 20 lakh per season, officials involved in the arrangements said. It's a drop in the ocean to a Kanwar budget of about Rs 100 crore, which is now being allocated to building of pandals, provision of drinking water points, medical camps, and CCTV surveillance and crowd management along a pilgrimage stretch of over 200 kilometres.

What does not often find the same level of discussion as the political tit-for-tat is the economic heft of the Yatra now. According to estimates, the informal economy stoked on the way generated almost Rs 1,000 crore in the month-long pilgrimage, of which a major portion went to small, unorganised businesses like dhabas, chai chingat khadis, cycle and bike repair shops, fruit vendors, cloth sellers hawking saffron gear, and those who make the kanwars themselves. An average pilgrim spends Rs 3000 to 4000 on the entire trip and the dhaba owners at NH-34 report that their monthly income doubles or triples during the Sawan season. This is the informal economy stripped of its veils, with cash changing hands in huge quantities, most of which is not taxed, and is entirely reliant on patronage that has increased dramatically over the years from a few thousand walkers in the 1980s to an estimated four crore-plus who arrived at Haridwar alone last year.

It is that scale that has made it impossible for any government, irrespective of party, to afford treating the Yatra as a religious footnote anymore in Lucknow. It has now emerged as the critical infrastructure of the season which is required to be planned like the Kumbh or Amarnath in Jammu and Kashmir by state governments. This is supported by the Uttar Pradesh government's thrust into religious tourism. The state has been banking on faith-driven footfall as an economic driver since the Ayodhya temple was inaugurated in January 2024 and the possibility of ten crore people visiting the temple town annually was floated. Then add the tourism sector, which brought in about seventeen crore more travellers in one year, and an FDI inflow of over Rs 17,000 crore since 2019, it is easy to understand why Lucknow has every reason to ensure the Kanwar route is carried on as smoothly and as photo-worthy as possible. A helicopter shower of flower petals is a small price to pay and earn a lot of goodwill against that backdrop.

But the political coloration of the calendar cannot be extricated from the political. Uttar Pradesh is going to the polls for assembly elections in 2027 and both the BJP and the Samajwadi Party are aware that the western belts of the state, which the Yatra traverses and has the Jat, Gujjar and Yadav population, will be a battleground. It is an inexpensive and effective strategy to mock the opponent months before the official campaign, by making them feel they are being outdone in respecting Hinduism. Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, has not outright rejected the ban charge, but has returned fire with allegations of renovations and religious infrastructure under the SP regime, and by citing the failure of the law and order during the current regime whenever something untoward happens during the pilgrimage.

There's also a less obvious international aspect to be noted. The religious mega-gatherings of this magnitude, with four crore-plus people travelling along a single path over the course of about two weeks, are now studied as a model for the challenges of managing crowds in cities, albeit in different contexts to the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Indian officials have slipped some of that crowd-control and sanitation experience abroad, via discussions with other states that host large religious gatherings.

All of this is unlikely to defuse political jibes. In fact, the petal vs ban debate might gain fresh momentum as the Yatra dates of 2026 get nearer with July 30 being the first date and Sawan Shivratri on August 11 the last. But behind the sound bites lies a pilgrimage that has been growing to become one of the largest informal economic activities in the North of India, which governments of all hues have good, practical reasons to be seen to be supporting, rather than limiting.