A girl cheers the Indian team at the Lucknow airport on Saturday. (PTI)

Lucknow, Nov. 10: First, Shah Rukh Khan was asked to stay away and now Green Park has turned blue.

The VIP enclosure and the walls dividing the galleries at the stadium, where Mayavati will watch the India-Pakistan match tomorrow, have been painted in her party’s colour. A gate near the VIP enclosure has been dressed up with blue cloth and festoons.

“Blue goes well with the eyes. This decision (to change the park’s colour from green to blue) has taken into consideration the effect the colour will have on the minds of viewers,” said Ashutosh Khare, an Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) architect. He denied that politics had a role.

Not everyone is convinced. The association has gone overboard trying to please Mayavati, said Irfan Sholanki, a Samajwadi Party MLA. “The sports infrastructure of the state should have been kept out of politics.”

“Why is the stadium still called Green Park?” a BJP leader asked.

If blue is the colour of choice, black is clearly not. A UPCA spokesperson said the colour has been banned at the stadium because security personnel fear it might be used to stage an anti-Pakistan protest.

No one wearing black will be allowed in, a home department spokesperson said. “We just don’t want to take chances,” said Brij Lal, an additional director-general of police.

Yesterday, the association asked BCCI not to invite Shah Rukh for the match, saying security would be a problem. But senior officials said the real reason was that Mayavati wanted to be the sole star at the show.

The chief minister, who will sit in a special enclosure made for her, is expected to arrive around noon. The match begins at 9am. She will be accompanied by about a dozen ministers and several BSP colleagues. Governor T.V. Rajeswar is likely to join her for the prize distribution.

Shah Rukh will meet the team tomorrow evening in Lucknow. A special screening of his film, Om Shanti Om, is to be held at Sahara Shahar, followed by a cultural programme.

A handful of players had watched the film in Chandigarh when it released yesterday. “But this will be a special show. Shah Rukh is expected to be present,” a UPCA source said.

From Sunday evening, the team will be put up at Sahara Shahar by sponsors Sahara India. It might have a practice session on Monday, before leaving for Gwalior on Tuesday morning.

The Indian and Pakistani teams arrived in Lucknow at 3.30pm today and headed straight to Kanpur, where they are being put up at Landmark Hotel.