Lucknow: Three days after the poll results were declared, showing a poor performance by her Bahujan Samaj Party, a livid Mayawati in her address to party leaders spent a good 30 minutes hitting out at a retired IAS officer, even using invectives. The man she was talking about was P L Punia, a former trusted lieutenant and a Dalit, who is now being seen as the latest weapon in the hands of the Congress against the Chief Minister.

Punia, who was elected from Barabanki constituency on a Congress ticket, was her principal secretary in her three previous regimes in 1995, 1997 and 2002.

Mayawati even questioned Punia’s caste credentials saying, “I wonder if you all are aware that Punia does not belong to the Chamar (cobbler) community; he is a Dhanuk from Haryana.”

“Punia is a traitor like Kajrorkar, personal assistant of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, but I won’t be bullied by him. I have inherited the legacy of Dr Ambedkar and Manyawar Kanshi Ram, and not traitors like Kajrorkar,” she added at the party meeting in Lucknow.

“The Congress has repeated history by fielding my personal secretary in the Lok Sabha polls. Sonia Gandhi, her son and daughter campaigned in Barabanki and the party spent over Rs 100 crore to ensure the victory of Punia, with the sole objective of humiliating me,” she said.

This was not the first time she targeted Punia. A day after the first phase of the polls on April 16, she had even accused Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi of frequently visiting UP to help his “friends in the bureaucracy who were contesting for the Congress”.

The 64-year-old Punia, a 1970-batch IAS officer of UP cadre and a native of Haryana, shot into prominence in 1993, when Mulayam Singh Yadav, took over as chief minister of the SP-BSP alliance government. Mayawati made him her principal secretary when she took over as CM in 1995. Since then, Punia served two more stints with Mayawati when she became the CM in 1997 and 2002.

But bitterness set in after the 175-crore Taj Heritage Corridor scam broke out in 2003. Punia turned approver against Mayawati, against whom the CBI was preparing a chargesheet. Though Mayawati got a reprieve after Governor T V Rajeswar refused to grant sanction for prosecution, her latest diatribe indicates her fear that Punia could become a handy tool in the hands of the Congress.

“Punia was a loyal bureaucrat who relentlessly protected the political interest of Mayawati, yet she ditched him in the Taj Heritage Corridor scam. This hurt Punia no end,” said a senior IAS officer. “Though there were IAS officers who wielded influence in state politics, none can match the clout of Punia, who has support cutting across caste and creed.”

The officer added: “Punia has worked closely with both Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, knows about the structure and methodology of the BSP. He could be a deadly weapon against Mayawati in the hands of the Congress.”

Punia, on his part, has an answer for Mayawati’s “traitor” allegation. “If I am repeating the history of Kajrorkar, then before equating me with the PA of Dr Ambedkar, she should first tell the people what she did with her mentor Kanshi Ram. Family members of Kanshi Ram were never allowed to meet him when he was seriously ill and they were not allowed to even attend his last rites.”

Describing the poll results as “a mandate against Mayawati”, he said: “Taking moral responsibility for the BSP’s defeat, she should resign as CM. She went to the polls hoping to become the next PM but today she is fighting to save her political ground in her home state.”

Punia, who retired in 2005, had contested the 2007 Assembly election from Fatehpur in Barabanki district, but lost to BSP’s Meeta Gautam. As in the 2007 polls, Mayawati had campaigned against Punia this time too. But Punia won by a margin of 1.67 lakh votes. The BSP candidate was a distant third.

Punia said he would do everything to revive the Congress. “We will do our job in the interest of the party, if that hurts the political interests of somebody we can’t help it,” said Punia. “As far as Mayawati is

Her supporters hand-feed her cake, she covers herself in diamonds and has a fleet of planes. Yet, as a Dalit, an 'untouchable', she is loved by India's legions of poor and could even be prime minister after the general election

For a woman who has made a career out of her membership of the lowest rung of Indian society, the politician known only as Mayawati has some very expensive tastes. The "queen" of the Dalits - the acceptable name for what were once the untouchables - has a particular fondness for the Oberoi, one of Delhi's most luxurious hotels, where she regularly drops in for a spot of pampering in the beauty salon.

She celebrates her birthday with lavish public parties, decking herself in diamonds and allowing her acolytes to hand-feed her cake. She has a fleet of 12 planes and helicopters, including a Beechcraft jet she uses as her flying office, and an estimated annual income in excess of £7m.

Her life is a world away from the poverty in which most of India's 160m Dalits subsist. Yet far from begrudging her such luxuries, they appear to love her for it. They call her Behenji - sister - and pack into her rallies to listen to her speak.

And if the month-long Indian general election currently underway produces the expected stalemate between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata party, it is just possible that their votes will enable her to win enough seats to become the power broker and even, though this remains a slim possibility, allow her to demand a role she so desperately craves: that of prime minister of India.

What she would do with it is anyone's guess. As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, Mayawati is perhaps better known for spending millions on parks and statues celebrating her Bahujan Samaj party than for doing anything to change the lives of the people she governs.

More a pragmatist than an ideologue, she started in politics lambasting the upper castes, urging her supporters to hit them with their shoes, yet had no qualms about forming an alliance with the high caste Brahmins to secure her most recent electoral victory. She has not been slow to court other minorities, including Muslims and Sikhs.

But it is not her policies that make Mayawati fascinating: it is more the possibility that a Dalit, a caste associated with the most menial occupations, may finally get her hands on the top job. Forget untouchable - a few years ago, this would have been unthinkable.

In keeping with her superstar status, Mayawati uses just one name (her full name is Kumari Mayawati Das). She was born in Delhi in 1956, the daughter of a government clerk and a housewife, members of the low-caste Hindu Jatav community.

Her relationship with her father, Prabhu Das, was troubled and the young Mayawati looked more to grandfather Mangal Sen, who served with the British army, as a father figure. He had refused to remarry after the death of his wife when his son was six months old and insisted on bringing the child up alone. This appears to have struck a chord with Mayawati, who was angered by her father's wish to find a new wife when her mother bore him three daughters.

"My grandfather said that granddaughters were perfectly capable of continuing the family heritage. He said that if girls are given a good education they can be as capable if not better than sons," she wrote in her autobiography, which offers some intriguing insights into the character of a young woman who would later go on to challenge the political establishment.

"As a child, I used to go with my parents to visit my maternal grandparents who lived in Simrauli village in Uttar Pradesh," she wrote. "One day, I was walking with my parents and grandparents past the river when out came a wolf right in front of us. The adults tried to restrain me by saying that I must stay away from the wolf otherwise it would eat me up. But instead of being scared, I challenged the wolf and said I would eat it up instead. Much to the horror of my grandparents and my parents, I chased the wolf. "

The family were desperately poor, so much so that when her young brother fell ill with pneumonia shortly after he was born, she had to carry him through a forest to the hospital because they could not afford a taxi.

Those days are long gone. Now the name Mayawati is synonymous with wealth and extravagance. As well her cars, helicopters and planes, she has 70 properties . Her birthdays are astonishing affairs. In Lucknow, capital of UP, she has declared the date - 15 January - to be "self-respect day" and appears at her parties clad in pink and festooned with diamonds, often surrounded by lifesize cutouts of herself (she is 5ft tall). This year's cake, her favourite Black Forest gateau, apparently weighed 53kg to mark her 53rd year.

Birthdays are a time for presents and Mayawati is no exception: so efficient are her supporters at securing donations, especially from officials and politicians keen to win her patronage, that there's an annual tally of £7m, which is scattered around more than 50 bank accounts. The size of her earnings has resulted in a criminal investigations into her tax affairs, though this is hardly unusual for an Indian politician.

Obsessed with cleanliness, she favours minimalist furnishings in her homes and is equally fastidious about her appearance. She lost 15kg after becoming vegetarian. She also chopped off her long and oily plait in favour of a bob and is known to indulge in a peroxide wash when she visits the Oberoi salon.

The obsession with her appearance extends to her public portrayal. Last June, she ordered a statue of herself in Lucknow to be taken down because she deemed it not tall enough: at 12ft, it was 3ft shorter than other statues in the same area. A new one was erected at a cost of £500,000. Then there's the book she published on her achievements which contains the chapter "If People Call me a Super Chief Minister, What Can I Do?"

Mayawati's private life is intriguing. Unmarried, she lived for many years with Kanshi Ram, the BSP president and her mentor, until his death in 2006 at the age of 72. The relationship was the subject of much speculation, though Mayawati has always insisted he was more like an older brother or father figure. Kanshi Ram, in his last interview, revealed he had been attracted to her by her coarse manner.

"I liked the way she spat and gave galis [expletives] in her speeches," he said.

According to Mayawati's biographer, Ajoy Bose, Kanshi Ram turned up unannounced at her house one winter's night in 1977 while she was studying for her law exams to become a district magistrate, or collector. He had heard good things about her, he said.

"Your courage, dedication to the Dalit cause and many other sterling qualities have come to my notice. I can make you such a big leader one day that not one but a whole row of collectors will line up with files in front of you waiting for orders, " he told her. That was enough to start her on her political career.

In 1995, under Kanshi Ram's patronage, Mayawati became UP's youngest chief minister at the age of 39. The then prime minister, PV Narasimha Rao, described it as "a miracle of democracy", but that government lasted just four months. Two years later, Mayawati was back, this time in coalition with the BJP, though that administration lasted only two months longer than her first. In 2002, her alliance with the BJP secured victory once more, only for the government to fall after 18 months amid controversy over a plan to build a massive shopping mall near the Taj Mahal. Allegations of corruption relating to the project have dogged her, though she denies doing anything wrong. She bounced back in 2007, this time winning a solo majority.

At the last general election, Mayawati's BSP won just 19 seats. This time around, it is determined to do better. Her rallies are organised with military precision by her Bahujan Volunteer Force, whose members wear blue uniforms and make sure the crowd is primed for her arrival. A Swiss-made tent, with air conditioning, carpets, fresh fruit and flowers, is always available for meetings.

"Uttar Pradesh is taken, now it's Delhi's turn," she tells her supporters, though she is realistic enough to know that she cannot win on her own.

If the BSP can secure enough seats, though, she may just be able to demand the top job in return for her support in a coalition. The business community is alarmed at the prospect - "disastrous" and "catastrophic" were two of the words cited in one recent report - but no one really knows how a Mayawati premiership may turn out.

Political critics say the last thing modern India needs is a politician whose selling point is her caste. Yet even her critics say that she is a good administrator, albeit one with a tendency to micro-manage.

All that is certain is that she would embrace the opportunity with gusto. Mayawati is the polar opposite of the cerebral but grey incumbent, Manmohan Singh. Her track record suggests it could be a short and bumpy ride, but bland it would not be. Indian politics would be a livelier and more colourful place. With added diamonds.

The Mayawati lowdown

Born Kumari Mayawati Das in Delhi in 1956, the daughter of a government clerk and a housewife, members of the low-caste Hindu Jatav, or Chamar, community. She studied law, with ambitions to become a magistrate, and taught before entering politics.

Best of times Sweeping aside the opposition to secure an outright majority in the 2007 state elections in Uttar Pradesh. The victory, secured with the support of upper-caste Brahmins, took her rivals by surprise and put her in a position where she could realistically start to think about the premiership.

Worst of times The collapse of her prevous administration amid corruption allegations over the construction of a shopping complex close to the Taj Mahal.

What she says "We treat the sarva samaj - all castes - as equals."


What others say "The entire political paradigm of Mayawati is based on fear, revenge and corruption. Her corruption is legendary, as is evident from the monuments she has built from Lucknow to Delhi. She should stop dreaming of becoming PM. Instead, she should focus on discharging her responsibility of chief minister of Uppar Pradesh first."

Congress party spokesperson Manish Tewari.

LUCKNOW: The big electoral puzzle in the country’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, just got bigger with reports indicating that Mayawati’s winning Dalit-Brahmin alliance may be fraying at the edges. As it is, estimates vary wildly about the electoral outcome in this state, and the latest trend is making predictions even more difficult to make.

The Dalit-Brahmin alliance was the winning combination for the Congress when it once held sway in UP. Since 2007, Mayawati had successfully stitched up a similar combination by giving 86 of the 402 BSP tickets to Brahmins in the state assembly election — the biggest caste block for BSP — which was preceded by a number of special meetings to send out the message of Brahmin-Dalit unity that resounded with slogans like, ‘‘Hathi nahin Ganesh hai, Bramha Vishnu Mahesh hai.’’

The tactic paid rich dividends and BSP was swept into power. The party’s Brahmin mascot and party general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra was said to be the second-most important person in the state after Mayawati. This triggered very high hopes among Brahmins. It’s now said that these hopes haven’t quite been fulfilled and hence the caste’s disenchantment with Mayawati.

Mayawati’s gameplan remains the same in this election. She has held a number of brotherhood meetings for Brahmins and given a similarly high proportion of party tickets to Brahmins. But two things have happened.

NUH, India, Apr 9 : Indian election rallies draw huge crowds, fiery speeches and a lot of promises to deliver a better future, but the star of the show is often the helicopter in which the key speaker arrives.

At a rally in the small town of Nuh, 78 kilometres (49 miles) south of New Delhi, several thousand low-caste Dalits, Muslims and the rural poor had been sitting on the ground for at least four hours, waiting in the baking heat.

When Mayawati Kumari, the "queen of the Dalits", finally came into land, they rushed to stand up and forced their way past security guards to watch her helicopter descend from the sky.

As it settled noisily on the flat, bare plain, its rotor blades blew clouds of gritty dust into the excited crowds and the canvas sun awnings flapped wildly in the breeze.

Mayawati, like all of India's prominent politicians, is on a hectic schedule, flying around the country from one rally to another, ahead of voting that starts on April 16.

Wherever the party leaders go, the format is much the same: a patch of open ground, a makeshift stage, sun shelter to protect the spectators -- and hours and hours of music, speeches and chanting to build up the atmosphere.

At Nuh, a poor farming area in the state of Haryana, the crowd had gathered since early morning, clogging the approaching roads with rickshaws, buses and carts decorated in the blue flags of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Men in simple white clothes filled much of the audience, while women in colourful saris cared for children in a reserved section off to one side.

"I am here to see Mayawati," said Sona, a 40-year-old Dalit woman. "I have seen her on television and she has promised that the lower castes will get more benefits and job opportunities."

Poor women in particular look to Mayawati, who has risen to be chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state after being born into a Dalit, or "untouchable", sub-caste of leatherworkers in 1956.

"She is like us and understands our problems. She knows how it is to be poor and we hope she will help us," said Somvati, an elderly female ragpicker suffering from cataracts.

Some spectators said transport to the rally was free and that they were there only out of curiosity and the chance of a day away from home, while others seemed certain that Mayawati could improve their lives.

"We are not paid to be here or given any free food," said Mosim Khan, 19, a truck driver from India's large and often poor Muslim minority.

"I will vote for the elephant (the BSP symbol), because Mayawati will bring us clean water, and sort out the railway line," he said.

As the waiting stretched into the heat of the day, local politicians gave lengthy warm-up performances attacking the incumbent Congress coalition and vowing that Mayawati would soon be prime minister.

Songs played on the loudspeaker sang "my queen, my sister, she is my life, she is my pride," and officials led chants of "she is new, she is determined, she is Mayawati".

Eventually she appeared on stage and delivered a 25-minute stump speech outlining her achievements as a chief minister and promising change for India's downtrodden masses.

Her rhetoric drew only an occasional splatter of applause, and soon the crowds were chatting among themselves despite party activists who tried to spark up further signs of enthusiasm.

After finishing her text, she left the stage quickly and returned to the helicopter.

Immediately the audience leapt back to life, pushing and shoving to get a good viewing position. The rotor blades revved into action and the queen of Dalits was borne up and away, out of the heat and the dust, and off to her next engagement.