UTTAR PRADESH
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Mayawati
Mayawati (born 15 January 1956) is the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India. She heads the Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents the Bahujans or Dalits, the weakest strata of Indian society. This is her fourth term as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. An icon and an inspiration for millions of India’s Dalits, who were oppressed by the Hindu upper castes for centuries, she is often referred to as Behen-ji, which means sister.
Mayawati’s rise from humble beginnings has been called a “miracle of democracy” by P. V. Narasimha Rao, former Prime Minister of India.In 1993 she formed a coalition with the Samajwadi Party and emerged, at 39, the youngest chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the first Dalit woman Chief Minister in India. In 1997 and in 2002, she was Chief Minister in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the second time for a full term. In two of these coalitions, she withdrew her support halfway through the term.
Mayawati’s tenure has attracted considerable controversy. She is now India’s richest Chief Minister. The rise in her personal wealth and that of her party are described by critics as indicators of corruption. Acts such as pulling down a stadium to build a monument to leaders of her party, including herself, are seen as whimsical and arbitrary, and her style has been compared to “running a fiefdom”.
Political career
In 1984 Kanshi Ram founded the BSP as a party to represent the Dalits and Buddhists. Mayawati was a key member of this organisation. BSP fielded Mayawati for its first election campaign from the Kairana Lok Sabha (Lower House) seat in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1984, and then again for the Lok Sabha seats of Bijnor in 1985 and Haridwar in 1987. In 1989 she was elected for the Lok Sabha seat of Bijnor, with a total of 183,189 votes.
Although BSP did not win, the electoral experience led to considerable activity for Mayawati over the next five years, as she worked with Masood Ahmed and other organisers. In the 1989 election, the party won 9% of the popular vote and 13 seats. It won 11 seats in the 1991 election. Because the Dalits are widely spread over the state, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati then adopted a policy of attracting other groups, which continues today.
Mayawati won election to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1989, from Bijnor. In 1995, while a member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), she became a Chief Minister in a short-lived coalition government, and validated her position by winning from two constituencies in 1996. She was again Chief Minister for a short period in 1997, and then for a somewhat longer term in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party from 2002 to 2003. Before that in 2001 her mentor, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Kanshi Ram, named her as his successor.
2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections
Contrary to some poll predictions, BSP won a majority in the 2007 elections, the first such majority since 1991. Mayawati attracted support from Brahmins, Thakurs, Muslims, and members of other backward classes. These people voted for a Dalit party for the first time, partly because BSP had offered seats to people from these communities. The campaign was accompanied by a colourful slogan: Haathi nahin, Ganesh hain, Brahma, Vishnu Mahesh Hain: “The elephant (BSP Logo) is really the Lord Ganesha, the trinity of gods rolled into one”. Her new slogan invited everyone, including the higher castes, to “come ride the elephant”, her party’s election symbol.
Mayawati was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time on 13 May 2007. She announced an agenda that focused on providing social justice to the weaker sections of society and providing employment instead of distributing money to the unemployed. Her slogan was to make “Uttar Pradesh” (“Northern Province”) into “Uttam Pradesh” (“Excellent Province”).
In 2007 Mayawati’s government began a major crackdown on irregularities in the recruitment process of police officers recruited during the previous Mulayam Singh government. So far 17,868 policemen have lost their jobs for irregularities in the recruitment process and 25 IPS officers were suspended for their involvement in corruption while recruiting the police constables. Mayawati is instituting reforms to introduce transparency into the recruiting process, including posting results of selection exams online.
As part of her social reform plans she advocates reservation for the poor among upper castes in addition to reservation for weaker sections of society. Reservation in India is a system whereby a percentage of government positions and seats in all universities are reserved for persons in backward classes and scheduled castes and tribes.
2009 parliamentary elections
The BSP won 20 seats in Lok Sabha from the state of Uttar Pradesh in the 2009 elections. The BSP obtained the highest percentage (27. 42%) of votes in Uttar Pradesh for any one political party. It was in third position in terms of national polling percentage (6.17%).
Political and legal issues
Taj corridor case
In 2003 the CBI raided Mayawati’s residence in relation to the Taj corridor case, two days after it had filed an First Information Report against her.This led to discovery of assets disproportionate to her known income.
Birthdays
Mayawati’s past birthdays have been major media events, where she appeared laden with diamonds.Her supporters have declared her birthday as Jan Kalyankari Diwas (People’s Welfare Day). In 2009 the day was marked by the announcement of welfare schemes targeted towards poor and downtrodden people of the state. Her 2010 birthday was marked by the launch of programmes with a value of over Rs 7,312 crores.
Disproportionate assets case
Mayawati’s assets run into millions of dollars, with several properties to her name. In the 2007–08 assessment year, Mayawati paid an income tax of Rupees 26 crores, ranking among the top 20 taxpayers in the country. Earlier the CBI had filed a case against her for owning assets disproportionate to her known sources of income. Mayawati described the CBI investigation against her as illegal. Her party asserts that her income comes from gifts and small contributions made by party workers and supporters.
Statues
In her tenures as a Chief Minister, Mayawati erected number of statues of Buddhist and Dalit icons like Bhimrao Ambedkar, Shahuji Maharaj, Gautam Buddha, BSP founder Kanshi Ram, and of herself.The statues and the memorial parks in which they are erected are said to have cost the state Rs. 2000 crore.The Supreme Court of India admitted a Public Interest Litigation questioning this expenditure. She maintains that the statues are symbols of Dalit assertion and the expenditure was required because the past governments did not show respect towards Dalit icons, in whose memory nothing was ever built. In February 2010, Mayawati’s government approved a plan for a special police force to protect the statues. She feared that her political opponents might demolish the statues.There are incidents of vandalism of statues of Dalit icon Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar in India.
World Bank criticism
The World Bank loaned India funds for development, and Mayawati was to manage projects with this money in UP. The projects were preplanned and on schedule, but the Mayawati government made changes which put the project behind schedule. The World Bank sent a 1 August 2002 letter of complaint to India’s central government stating, “We have now learnt that project managers have been replaced within three weeks of assuming office. The project coordinator of the Diversified Agriculture Support Project has been changed twice in quick succession and at the moment there is no project coordinator. In the forestry project, numerous changes have been made over the past six months … Such developments do not augur well for these time-bound projects that require consistently good leadership.”
Wikileaks allegations
Diplomatic cables published in 2011 through Wikileaks detailing the opinions of American civil servants asserted that Mayawati ran all governmental decisions through her small group of advisors and that she employed food tasters for security. The diplomatic cables also alleged that Mayawati sent a private jet to Mumbai to retrieve some sandals.Mayawati responded to the cables by saying that the statements they presented were baseless.
Books on Mayawati
Many studies have been done on Mayawati and many books have been published, including her autobiographies. One of the first works was journalist Mohammad Jamil Akhter’s book, Iron Lady Kumari Mayawati. Her autobiographies are Mere Sangarshmai Jeevan Evam Bahujan Movement Ka Safarnama in three volumes in Hindi, and A Travelogue of My Struggle-ridden Life and of Bahujan Samaj, in English in two volumes. Behenji : A Political Biography Of Mayawati is a biography by veteran journalist Ajoy Bose.
The security of former Uttar pradesh chief minister and BSP president Mayawati has been scaled down. A government official on Saturday said the security deployed at her residence in Lucknow and Delhi has been reduced to her present status of...
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo and former Uttar pradesh chief minister Mayawati is in introspection mode. The Mayawati has called a three-day meeting of her party leaders to take stock of the poll debacle. The BSP managed to win merely...
BSP chief Mayawati has called a two-day meeting at her party office on Saturday. Mayawati will be meeting party MLAs and MPs on Saturday, and on Sunday, the leader will be meeting all office bearers and zonal coordinators. The agenda...
After BSP's defeat in UP elections, BSP chief Mayawati broke her silence to blame Congress and BJP for communalizing the elections which, in turn, made a majority of Muslim voters plump for Samajwadi Party. However, she claimed that "not a...
Sonia Gandhi on wednesday said that every election was a lesson for the Congress party. "I humbly accept the results of the assembly elections. Sonia Gandhi was addressing the media in New Delhi after meeting with senior party leaders in...
Mayawati who formally resigned today, has defended her government, which was decimated in the UP elections. Her Bahujan Samaj Party got 80 seats, as compared to 206 in the last assembly elections of 2007. She refused to acknowledge...
The Samajwadi Party leades Akhilesh Yadav has said the new government in UP would not act with revenge against its arch political rival, the BSP. “There will be no vengeful action,” Akhilesh told reporters, who asked him if the new...
Ousting the BSP government of Mayawati through its impressive win in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, the parliamentary board of the Samajwadi Party will meet on Wednesday to decide who will be the next chief minister. Although, Mulayam...
Bharatiya Janata Party has ruled out any post-poll alliance with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party. BJP MP Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, "There is no question of a post-poll alliance with BSP." He also said that the BJP was confident of forming...
Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed opposition SP, BSP and BJP "for fooling the people with bogus assurances. "During the last 22 years, SP, BSP and BJP have been fooling the people with bogus assurances in health, education and employment sectors,"...