M A I N   N E W S

The Last Word
Mayawati
Larger than life
Battles with farmers and political opponents have turned Mayawati into the ‘Iron Lady’ of Uttar Pradesh
Shahira Naim in Lucknow

She wears either beige or pink, yet she is one of the most colourful political figures of India. She represents the Dalits, yet also courts the Brahmins and other upper castes. A select few get to see her these days, but many huge statues of Mayawati dominate urban skylines in Uttar Pradesh.

Too big to ignore, opinion about Mayawati is sharply polarised: People either love her or hate her. A canny politician who is tuned into the grass-roots, Mayawati and controversies go together. However, she often draws political mileage from them. The ‘Dalit ki beti’ is the Chief Minister of the most populous state of the country for the fourth time, and president of the Bahujan Samaj Party, one of the six national parties.

A fiery temper and sharp tongue mark this leader, considered to be a hard taskmaster who takes on-the-spot decisions. Clockwork precision marks her political meetings, and Behenji (sister), as she is popularly called, manages not to get bogged down by adversities.

The CBI probe into the disproportionate assets, the outcry against spending vast amounts of public money on statues, the money mala, her amending the civic poll rules to introduce non-party election for corporators, members, chairmen and mayors—she has managed to ‘handle’ every hurdle.

Once again, the Taj Expressway, now re-christened the Yamuna Expressway project, has emerged to haunt her, leading to a farmers’ agitation across several districts of western Uttar Pradesh. The controversy around the project had cost her the CM’s seat in 2003. However, Mayawati blames the UPA government for not amending the antiquated Land Acquisition Act of 1894 causing all the trouble. She is ‘handling’ the farmers, and is acutely aware of the Congress resurgence under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.

Maya-watchers say there is a difference between her attitude when she first assumed the Chief Minister’s office in 1995 and now. During her previous tenures, she personally took division-wise review meetings and inspected development projects, especially Ambedkar villages.

Old timers remember her chopper landing in any field or village, especially in Dalit-dominated areas, without prior information to the authorities. She spoke individually to the villagers, hearing their woes. She earned their admiration as she often suspended officers for dereliction of duty. Her review meetings were dreaded as she immediately ordered adverse entries in the service books of officers who, in her perception, were not performing well.

When the IAS association filed an interlocutory application in the Supreme Court over large-scale transfers affected by her government, she gave it back through a now famous three-hour-long monologue during the senior administrative officers’ conference.

These days, she hardly steps out of her official residence. A bureaucrat, who requested anonymity, confided that the review meetings are rarely presided over by the Chief Minister. Her top officers brief her, after which she gives directions.

Her 54th birthday this year was marked as ‘Public Welfare Day’. From her official residence she pressed a button unmasking 264 foundations stones marking the launch of as many welfare schemes to the tune of Rs 7,312 crore across the state. Gone was the personal touch of yore.

After assuming office in 2007, she built a separate entrance to the CM’s secretariat along with an exclusive elevator, which takes her to the ‘pancham tal’ office. This rules out the possibility of ministers, bureaucrats or the media bumping into her in the elevator or the corridors. The day-to-day running of the government has been left to a few senior ministers who are her trusted party colleagues and hand-picked senior bureaucrats.

It is believed that the heightened threat perception and a dust allergy force her to remain indoors. When she moves out of the confines of her residence to her secretariat or airport, the streets are washed clean of dust. A wet road in Lucknow is a sure sign that Behenji has passed that way!

RK Chaudhury, the old colleague who is now a critic and Rashtriya Swabhiman Party’s lone MLA, sees a conspiracy of an upper caste coterie in cutting her off from the people and keeping her oblivious of ground reality. “She was always a person of few words but was never a recluse like she has become. I fear that there are Pushyamitra Sunga-like people surrounding her today who have the ulterior motive of destroying the Dalit movement that the party once represented.” He is referring to a Mauryan general who wanted to wipe out Buddhism. He assassinated the last Maurya king and killed many Buddhist monks.

Is Mayawati cutting herself off from the sources of her strength? Political observers say her inaccessibility is dangerous. She makes aerial surveys to monitor the progress of her monuments in Lucknow, and even her party’s performances during demonstrations are observed from choppers.

When leader of the BJP Legislative Party, Om Prakash Singh, recently criticised this fear psychosis that kept her away from the Vidhan Sabha, Mayawati promptly made a brief appearance during Question Hour the next day.

Her erstwhile Rakhi brother and BJP MP Lalji Tandon describe her as a unique phenomenon of Indian democracy. “She has amassed unlimited power in a democracy which probably even Indira Gandhi did not manage during Emergency”. Earlier, the presence of her astute mentor Kanshi Ram and the pressures of running a collision government forced her to follow the basic etiquettes of a parliamentary democracy, observes Tandon.

Mayawati’s prime ministerial aspirations fuelled a hectic spell of touring during the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. She did not take a day’s break for 52 days. Setting out every morning from a remote corner, she addressed rallies during the day and returned to Lucknow by night. However, the results dampened her spirits and she has hardly campaigned since then. She did not go to Firozabad, or to any election meeting, during the 11 Assemblies by-elections in which her party won eight seats.

What gives her strength is complete control over the party organisation and being two steps ahead of her political rivals. Frequently, she holds daylong closed-door meetings with party coordinators, MPs, MLAs or district-level functionaries, where party strategy is discussed threadbare and important decisions announced.

After the Lok Sabha debacle, the feedback she received during such meetings made her re-focus her attention on her core Dalit agenda. Satish Chandra Mishra, the Brahmin face who helped the BSP come to power has now been sidelined and Brahmins are getting less prominence as she feels that they may shift their allegiance to the Congress. Her attempts to make a rainbow coalition doesn’t seem to be working and now she is falling back on her traditional support base.

An intensely private person, very little is known about Mayawati the woman, who has now been nick-naked the ‘Iron Lady’. On every birthday, she officially releases a volume of her autobiography called “Mera Sangharshmay Jeevan Evam Bahujan Movement ka Safarnama”. The series is not available for sale at any bookstore or even placed in libraries. Her life story remains private even as she continues to be in the public eye.