This Article is From Feb 01, 2012

Look at huge crowds, says pleased Mayawati to NDTV at campaign launch

Sitapur: When asked if she expects to return as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for a fifth term, Mayawati told NDTV, "Look at the number of people gathered here. There is no need for me to comment." The college ground where she held her rally in Sitapur was packed with nearly 20,000 people for the official launch of her election campaign. But this is a small venue by UP standards for a politician of Mayawati's stature. She regularly draws audiences three times this size.

Wearing a checked jacket over a cream turtleneck and her usual off-white salwaar-kameez, Mayawati addressed the constant criticism over the lack of development in her state, which has been sanctioned hefty funds from the Centre. "We have done more for UP...to lift it from its backwardness...than any other government," she told NDTV. "We can't achieve everything in five years."

Earlier, Mayawati delivered a speech which targeted the Congress whose president, Sonia Gandhi, is also campaigning today in Uttar Pradesh. "Give us a thumping majority," she urged her audience. "Don't fall for the Congress' promise that they will bring in development. They have done nothing in their decades at the Centre, and 40 years in power in the state."

There were the familiar refrains the chief minister uses to counter attacks of criticism - "They (opponents) cannot stand the success of a Dalit ki beti (Dalit's daughter)," she charged. So far, the Dalits, a formidable 21% of the electorate, have been unwavering in their loyalty to her. The chief minister's bigger challenge lies in whether she can repeat her winning combination of 2007 of Dalit voters flanked by supporters from the Muslims and the Brahmins. Her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) says it wants to serve "sarv samaaj" - all sections of society. It has selected as many as 117 upper caste candidates; 85 constituencies have Muslim candidates.  

Referring to the allegations of corruption, and the cases against several of her ministers, Mayawati said she had asked those entangled in financial scandals to resign from her government - 18 ministers have been fired in the last six months, twelve of them on charges of corruption. "If the Centre sends us funds and they go missing, it is not our fault. We do not deal directly with this money. The Centre's officers and ministers are even more responsible than state officials for this, but no investigations by the CBI have been ordered against them," she said.

Because Rahul Gandhi is steering the Congress' campaign, the election in UP is not just a strategic one, but a point of considerable prestige for his party. In a bare-faced appeal to the 18% Muslim population, the party has promised nearly 9% reservations for minorities - a sub-quota within the existing 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes or OBCs. The new quota would help backward Muslim castes. Ignore this, Mayawati said in her speech. "The Congress is trying to give false hope to the minority community. It's a conspiracy by the Congress to divide and rule within the OBC quota."

Over the next few days, she will address close to 30 rallies. Despite the confidence she displayed today, privately her party admits that this is a tough bid for her fifth term as chief minister. Her bureaucracy and ministers have been dogged by scandals of deeply entrenched graft - in one ministry alone, three doctors assigned to handling crores of funds for rural health facilities have died - two were murdered, the third died in jail under mysterious circumstances. The state has been resigned for decades to systematic venality, but the murders have brought national focus to the underbelly of UP politics.  

After announcing the dates on which UP will vote, the Election Commission ordered that the outsized statues Mayawati has built of herself and her party's symbol, the elephant, be covered up - a nod to electoral protocol,  where no party is meant to have unfair advantage to impress voters. Those statues can be seen now, cowering under shrouds of plastic sheets, many of them pink. Mayawati described their forced cover today as a mistake. "You are upset by this," she told the rally. "Show how much by voting for us in huge numbers."
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