He was told he could not garland the iconic statue of Dr B R Amebkar in Mayawati's constituency of Ambedkar Nagar. So Rahul Gandhi showered petals on the leader's statue in Parliament in Delhi, and then headed to battle the UP Chief Minister on her home turf.
 
The occasion is Ambedkar's birth anniversary, the cause is the next election in 2012.
 
Gandhi's message to Dalit voters there was direct: Mayawati has let them down, and they need to opt for change. Standing barely half a kilometer from where Mayawati was conducting her own parallel celebrations, Gandhi said, "We have raised the question of the poor and the left-out and will continue to do so. With time, people will see how the Congress party brings about changes in UP. We are going to bring development and employment for the youth. Till we are successful, we are not going to give up."
 
Gandhi then set loose upon the state's 403 constituencies a series of specially-constructed raths that his party hopes will symbolize ten state-wide yatras. Congress leaders will roll into different parts of UP to woo voters. Their target:  Brahmins and Dalits who sided with Mayawati in the last state election in 2007, but who have grown disenchanted with her since.
 
In the general election last year, 56 per cent of Dalits did not vote. They feel abandoned by a leader who they have shouldered to repeated victories, one who they think has sided recently with Brahmins. 
 
Mayawati is not unaware of this feeling of abandonment. She has indicated recently that close to 40 Brahmin MLAs will not get tickets in the next election. And at her rally on Wednesday, it was clear she wanted to reassert her image as an untiring champion of Dalits.
 
Attacking those who've criticized the memorials she's built in homage to Dalit leaders, including herself, she said, "Neither the BSP nor my government will bow down even a bit to the criticism of opposition parties on the memorials and parks set up in honour of these great men and will leave no stone unturned to provide them due respect."
 
The memorials and parks she's referring to cost close to 2000 crores and have been funded by taxpayers, an issue which the Supreme Court is now studying. 
 
Mayawati also used the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti to showcase her party's protests against the Women's Reservation Bill, pushed through the Rajya Sabha recently at the insistence of Sonia Gandhi.

The bill sets aside 33 per cent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women. Mayawati rejects it because it does not have a quota for Dalit women. Mayawati promised to survey her party's protests, organized all over the state, by helicopter.
 
Over the next few months, political analysts predict the Congress campaign will portray  Mayawati as a self-aggrandizing politician who  invested the power Dalits gave her  in extravagances like jewels, garlands worth lakhs, monuments built for crores.

However, in the past, Dalits have often expressed their support for this sort of flamboyance.  They say it is inspiring to see a Dalit seeped in luxuries they can only dream of.  In her image, they find a fulfillment of aspirations thwarted over generations, and this, in many ways, is Mayawati's biggest strength- to present herself as a leader of the masses, even when that link is not at its strongest.