Mayawati provokes BJP to consolidate vote banks

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Every time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati steps out of Lucknow to address a public rally in the state, what seems certain is the creation of a new district. No wonder the most populous state added seven new districts after she assumed office two months ago, taking their number to 76.

''Larger districts are unmanageable, and have to be bifurcated,'' argues Mayawati, though she refrains from answering how, by the same logic, this gigantic state still remains manageable. Perhaps, she believes that politicians like her were more efficient and capable than bureaucrats.

More than the creation of the new districts it was their names that caused heartburn, particularly among her coalition partner, the BJP. The latter was irked that the new districts were named after Dalit leaders and personalities. As if to add insult to injury, BJP leaders were not even consulted and every new district came as a surprise to them.

It was fine when NOIDA became the Gautam Buddh Nagar district. But when it came to naming the new district carved out of Aligarh as Mahamaya Nagar instead of Hathras as was contemplated for quite some time, many eyebrows were raised. Very few knew that Mahamaya was none other than the mother of Gautam Buddha. ''Hathras was the obvious choice as it is not only the most developed town of the area, but also has historical value,'' remarked chief minister-in-waiting Kalyan Singh who hails from Aligarh.

Recalling the town's association with renowned poet Kaka 'Hathrasi', Kalyan Singh asked angrily, ''Will Kaka now have to call himself Kaka 'Mahamayavi'?'' Pat came Mayawati's retort, ''After all Mahamaya was no ordinary mortal, she was Lord Buddha's mother.''

Any further argument from the BJP could have put the ''upper caste'' party in an embarrassing situation, for it would have been construed as the party's antipathy to Buddha who was the first to save low caste Hindus from the tyranny of brahminism.

As the debate raged and BJP leaders expressed their subdued resentment over the issue, Mayawati carved out a new district out of Banda in southern Uttar Pradesh. She named it Shahuji Maharaj Nagar, ignoring the sentiments of the people who preferred Karvi (after the most prominent town in the area) or Chitrakoot, associated with Lord Ram's exile and Tulsidas's birth.

The BJP leaders were desperate to get the place named Chitrakoot. ''Who knows Shahuji Maharaj in UP?'' was among the most pertinent of questions. True, Shahuji Maharaj, who started reservations for the downtrodden in Maharashtra in the early 20th century, was introduced to UP by none other than BSP supremo Kanshi Ram during the last Mayawati regime, when Kanpur University and a bridge in Lucknow were named after him. It was then that people in UP were told how great Shahuji Maharaj was.

''We did not object then, but now she is going overboard,'' commented a senior BJP leader. But Mayawati cared less. Soon Moradabad was bifurcated, naming the new district after Maharashtra social reformer Jyotiba Phule.

Meanwhile, Kanshi Ram caused much embarrassment to the BJP by comparing it to a ''cobra''. The BJP leadership took strong exception to such invective, and Kanshi Ram was told ''enough was enough''.

Thereafter, when it came to bifurcating Varanasi, Mayawati quietly allowed the name of an old tehsil, Chandauli to be retained as the name of the new district. The local population, however, wanted the district to be named as Mughal Serai, the railway junction which has the country's biggest rail yard. ''Perhaps she wants people to think that the BJP did not approve of Mughal Serai because of its Islamic heritage,'' remarked political observer Shailendra Singh.

The BJP leadership's eventual warning seems to have worked. Not only Chandauli, but even the two other districts -- Balrampur and Shravasti -- formed on May 22 simply retained their local names.

Apart from creation of new districts, Mayawati has devoted much of her attention to the development of a 28-acre park named after Ambedkar in the state capital. Located adjacent to the Taj Hotel, the park will have five-star facilities. With Rs 400 million already allocated for the purpose and more in the pipeline, the chief minister and her mentor Kanshi Ram visit the site every now and then.

Even if a hefty sum goes to architect and painter Satish Gujral (brother of Prime Minister I K Gujral) for designing the project, it is rather difficult to figure out how so much money would be spent on the project, especially when the Taj Hotel was built by the Tatas at the cost of nearly Rs 400 million, say officials. But they seem to have forgotten Mayawati's view that the park should be ''more impressive than the Taj Hotel.''

While the bureaucracy stands divided over the fund-starved government's extravagance (it would cost Rs 1 billion to 1.5 billion to create infrastructure for a single district), political observers wonder how this will benefit the BSP politically.

Mayawati's supporters feel the park will reap rich dividends as nothing of the kind exists anywhere else in the country. ''If today I can change the geography of the country's largest state, tomorrow I will rewrite the destiny of the dalits,'' she said. By provoking her detractors to raise their voice against her actions and initiatives, she was trying to further consolidate her vote bank.

If provocation pays the desired dividends, then she may revive her obsession for E V Ramaswamy Naicker 'Periyar', the controversial social reformer from the south. It was her insistence on installing Periyar's statue in Lucknow that then propelled the parting of ways between the BSP and the BJP. So, if she chooses to bid goodbye to her coalition partner again, she could surely play the same card again and conveniently blame the BJP for being ''opposed'' to the dalit cause.

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Mayawati eats words, Kalyan Singh swallows bitter pill