Two 55 kg cakes are waiting to be cut on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's 55th birthday on Saturday.
While one of these cakes would be cut by Mayawati herself at the official celebration in the morning at the newly constructed state-of-art Ambedkar auditorium on the sprawling campus of Ram Manohar Lohia Law University in Lucknow, the other cake would be cut by a group of local citizens later in the day.
This was being done at the initiative of Lucknow Sindhi Association in collaboration with traders of the city's main shopping street, Hazratganj that has witnessed a remarkable makeover on its completion of 200 years.
"We are cutting the cake to celebrate the chief minister's 55th birthday, which coincides with the 200th anniversary of Hazratganj, whose old glory has been restored because of her kind disposition. As traders of Hazratganj, we wish to also offer our gratitude to her in this manner," Sindhi Samaj president and leading Hazratganj trader Murlidhar Ahuja told
rediff.com.
The official birthday celebrations would commence at 10 am with the inauguration of Ambedkar Auditorium, which would be followed by unveiling of plaques of various welfare schemes and development projects worth Rs 4000 crore by the chief minister.
The projects include some memorials, statues, construction of roads, bridges, flyovers and sewage treatment plants, water
supply and drainage schemes, power installations and other major and minor infrastructure projects for different parts of the state.
A group of Buddhist monks have been specially invited to bless her on the occasion with recitations from Buddhist scriptures.
That would be followed by a screening of a film on her government's achievements over the past three and a half years and a cultural event that prominently includes a song, specially composed for and dedicated to Mayawati.
Meanwhile, the entire state capital was literally painted blue -- the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party's hue -- as a part of the birthday celebrations. While canopies of blue lights were put around each of the memorials, dedicated to BSP icons, including herself, virtually
every inch of most of the city's key thoroughfares were flanked by hoardings emboldened with birthday greetings for Mayawati.
Late Friday night, the chief minister personally took round of the blue illuminations along with her family members, who arrived in Lucknow from New Delhi earlier in the day.
No sooner than she expressed her desire to undertake a round on the eve of her birthday, officials suddenly got into action to get the roads and pavements clear of dirt. Water was sprinkled all along her route while a huge contingent of the police was busy clearing the
roads of not only vehicular traffic but also for pedestrians
