Why is Mayawati Soaring?
Is Ms Mayawati soaring into cloud nine as India appears to be inaugurating a women's era of sorts in politics? She may have won 206 seats out of 403 in the U.P. Assembly elections last month, but she already has 210 MLAs supporting her. Some small parties, which won only one seat or independents, have joined hands with her. They include a Yadav and a Muslim, believed to be the votaries of her principal foe, Mulayam Singh Yadav.
There is no doubt that Ms Mayawati is going through what is politically called a honeymoon between the ruler and the ruled. How long will that honeymoon last? Time will tell and it will do so very soon. The first test she will face is when the monsoon arrives and starts showing its fury with floods. Or worse when some parts of the State are left high and dry and poor farmers scan the sky for the clouds laden with water. She has so far had no problems with massive transfer of senior officials at the Secretariat and in the districts, but she may also have to abide by the new rule of not disturbing the officials now in place for two years, unless she can offer good reasons, but only in a few cases.
Some MPs belonging to the Socialist Party of M.S.Yadav believe that the strength of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party will rise to 225 in the days to come as most of the Independents will switch their loyalty to her. Some of them are quite pleased that after a long time, a political party has secured a clear mandate in U.P. and that the Assembly is not hung. Nor has the Chief Minister to cobble together a majority by the route of immoral defections. She would also like to win over Muslims, 80 per cent of whom are believed to have voted for Mulayam Singh's candidates in spite of partial erosion of the Maulana's constituency and his reported flirtations with the BJP to remain in power in his bygone term in office.
They do not see any erosion of her strength in the years to come as she is trying to rule the State forcefully. She has had a Member of Parliament of her own party arrested at her own house as he faced charges of murder. Even an MLA of her own party faces similar arrest. She is clearly trying to establish her authority as a ruler who does not yet tolerate sycophants or suspicious elements.
Even as she wantonly dreams of occupying the Dilli Durbar after a future General Election by spreading her wings into neighbouring States, she perhaps realizes that if wishes were horses, beggars would be riders. As political hyperbole, it is all right to dream and look up to the sky, but perhaps her new found advisers, who include a Brahmin, supposedly with Chanakya like strategies, are asking her to keep her feet rooted in the ground and be satisfied with presiding over the most populous State of India with 160 million people residing in its many districts and villages.
Her trump card in the election campaign earlier this year was that U.P. was completely lawless even as the former Chief Minister claimed through TV advertisements featuring the greatest Bollywood hero that Uttar Pradesh had less crime than other States. The voters rejected that claim out of hand and reduced Mulayam Singh Yadav from the 148 seats he had won five years earlier to 95, a loss of more than 50 seats. Mayawati has also had a reprieve from the Taj Corridor Case as the Governor has refused to sanction her prosecution. She has claimed that the money spent by her government in her previous tenure as Chief Minister was only Rs. 17 crores, and not Rs.170 crores, as alleged by her detractors.
But on the other hand, she has uncovered and will continue to come with scams or alleged scams to which her predecessor was heir to. There are investigations afoot about the Bollywood darling being certified as a farmer and given 20 acres of farmland. Two business houses close to the Yadav are discovering that their great projects, be they in the power sector or special economic zones or any other are in trouble.
Ms Mayawati plans to continue her appeal across the castes and woo Brahmins, and possibly Rajputs, in the neighboring Madhya Pradesh, which is due to go to the polls later this year. She has asked her Deputy Chief Minister, a Brahmin, to get cracking in the center of India. She may also be eyeing similar moves in Gujarat, which also goes to the polls later this year, but nothing has been heard of that as yet.
She is enormously pleased that the Congress, including Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, are wooing her to seek her support for the United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate, Mrs. Pratibha Patil, who was the Governor of Rajasthan. She is pleased to hear that even BJP's key supporter, Shiv Sena, may break ranks with the principal Opposition party in the Presidential elections as Shiv Sena would like to see a Maharashtra Rajputs become the head of State in keeping with its son or rather daughter of the soil ethos.
Ms Mayawati has just started her five-year journey in power and she may have to tread carefully in her present term and keep her known volatility and anger in check in the months and years to come.
There is no doubt that Ms Mayawati is going through what is politically called a honeymoon between the ruler and the ruled. How long will that honeymoon last? Time will tell and it will do so very soon. The first test she will face is when the monsoon arrives and starts showing its fury with floods. Or worse when some parts of the State are left high and dry and poor farmers scan the sky for the clouds laden with water. She has so far had no problems with massive transfer of senior officials at the Secretariat and in the districts, but she may also have to abide by the new rule of not disturbing the officials now in place for two years, unless she can offer good reasons, but only in a few cases.
Some MPs belonging to the Socialist Party of M.S.Yadav believe that the strength of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party will rise to 225 in the days to come as most of the Independents will switch their loyalty to her. Some of them are quite pleased that after a long time, a political party has secured a clear mandate in U.P. and that the Assembly is not hung. Nor has the Chief Minister to cobble together a majority by the route of immoral defections. She would also like to win over Muslims, 80 per cent of whom are believed to have voted for Mulayam Singh's candidates in spite of partial erosion of the Maulana's constituency and his reported flirtations with the BJP to remain in power in his bygone term in office.
They do not see any erosion of her strength in the years to come as she is trying to rule the State forcefully. She has had a Member of Parliament of her own party arrested at her own house as he faced charges of murder. Even an MLA of her own party faces similar arrest. She is clearly trying to establish her authority as a ruler who does not yet tolerate sycophants or suspicious elements.
Even as she wantonly dreams of occupying the Dilli Durbar after a future General Election by spreading her wings into neighbouring States, she perhaps realizes that if wishes were horses, beggars would be riders. As political hyperbole, it is all right to dream and look up to the sky, but perhaps her new found advisers, who include a Brahmin, supposedly with Chanakya like strategies, are asking her to keep her feet rooted in the ground and be satisfied with presiding over the most populous State of India with 160 million people residing in its many districts and villages.
Her trump card in the election campaign earlier this year was that U.P. was completely lawless even as the former Chief Minister claimed through TV advertisements featuring the greatest Bollywood hero that Uttar Pradesh had less crime than other States. The voters rejected that claim out of hand and reduced Mulayam Singh Yadav from the 148 seats he had won five years earlier to 95, a loss of more than 50 seats. Mayawati has also had a reprieve from the Taj Corridor Case as the Governor has refused to sanction her prosecution. She has claimed that the money spent by her government in her previous tenure as Chief Minister was only Rs. 17 crores, and not Rs.170 crores, as alleged by her detractors.
But on the other hand, she has uncovered and will continue to come with scams or alleged scams to which her predecessor was heir to. There are investigations afoot about the Bollywood darling being certified as a farmer and given 20 acres of farmland. Two business houses close to the Yadav are discovering that their great projects, be they in the power sector or special economic zones or any other are in trouble.
Ms Mayawati plans to continue her appeal across the castes and woo Brahmins, and possibly Rajputs, in the neighboring Madhya Pradesh, which is due to go to the polls later this year. She has asked her Deputy Chief Minister, a Brahmin, to get cracking in the center of India. She may also be eyeing similar moves in Gujarat, which also goes to the polls later this year, but nothing has been heard of that as yet.
She is enormously pleased that the Congress, including Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, and Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, are wooing her to seek her support for the United Progressive Alliance's Presidential candidate, Mrs. Pratibha Patil, who was the Governor of Rajasthan. She is pleased to hear that even BJP's key supporter, Shiv Sena, may break ranks with the principal Opposition party in the Presidential elections as Shiv Sena would like to see a Maharashtra Rajputs become the head of State in keeping with its son or rather daughter of the soil ethos.
Ms Mayawati has just started her five-year journey in power and she may have to tread carefully in her present term and keep her known volatility and anger in check in the months and years to come.
