UP restaurant offers free chole bhature for cancelling Maldives trip

A restaurant in Uttar Pradesh is offering free chole bhature for people have cancelled their trip to Maldives or have booked a trip to Lakshadweep. 

Far from the unspoilt white beaches of Lakshadweep, a restaurant in Uttar Pradesh has cooked up a real deal -- a plate of 'chole bhature' for free with every booking in Lakshadweep or trips to the Maldives cancelled, no questions asked.

As several Indians press that cancel button on the booking portal for their Maldives trip, you are not only getting a refund but also a culinary consolation prize -- the humble 'chole bhature' -- if you happen to be in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand that is.

Jumping on the #BoycottMaldives bandwagon, a restaurant chain in Noida and Ghaziabad is offering a plate of their 'special chole bhature' absolutely free for those who have booked a trip to Lakshadweep or cancelled their visit to the Maldives.

Speaking about the unique ad, the restaurant chain owner said he came up with the idea after Maldivian ministers started making derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Through this we want to promote tourism in Lakshadweep. We started this scheme on Saturday and the response has been very good. In the NCR region itself, 10 people have availed the scheme and they have appreciated it. We now plan to extend the scheme till the end of January," the owner of the Noida-based restaurant, Vivek Mishra, told IndiaToday.in.

"It's not only about doing business, but about showing support to the country and its tourism sector," he further said.

In fact, in the past two weeks, cancellations of several hotel bookings and flight tickets to the Maldives have been reported. On the other hand, all flight tickets to Lakshadweep's Agatti Islands were sold out till March.

It all started with an unrelated trip to Lakshadweep by PM Modi and the sharing of images of its pristine landscape. Chatter on the internet and some media reports associated the promotion of Lakshadweep as a tourist destination as a counter to the Maldives. Three Maldivian lawmakers somehow got triggered and posted derogatory and racist comments against Indians and PM Modi.

This led a travel booking portal to suspend all Maldives flight bookings and prompted a plethora of ad campaigns such as the 'chole bhature' offer.

Everyone seems to want a bite of the Lakshadweep pie and is willing to showcase their "Indianness". The ad by the restaurant chain has "proud to be an Indian" written in big letters in the middle.