Mayawati (b. January 15, 1956, Delhi) is an Indian politician, and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. She is the president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and is widely perceived as the architect of the stunning BSP victory in the Uttar Pradesh Elections, 2007. Earlier, she had been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh three times, briefly during 1995 and 1997, and from 2002 to 2003 with support from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mayawati is the first Dalit woman to become the Chief Minister of any of India's states[2]. She belongs to Jatav (Chamar) caste which is at the upper-end of the Dalit caste hierarchy in Uttar Pradesh. Although her politics started with a Dalit platform, she has been increasingly reaching out to Brahmins and other upper castes, and her 2007 victory in assembly elections has been widely hailed as a result of such caste rainbow policies[3].
Mayawati is facing charges of corruption in the Taj Corridor project. Investigators claim that Mayawati has disproportionately high assets of Rs. 15 crores[4]. A large number of legislators in her party have a criminal record (as with other parties in U.P.)[5].

Early life

Mayawati's father Prabhu Das was a clerk in the Telecommunications department in Delhi, and her mother is Ram Rathi. She graduated from Kalindi College in Delhi and further studied law at the University of Delhi. She also holds a Bachelor of Education degree, and was a teacher in Delhi until joining full time politics in 1984. At one point she also studied for the Indian Administrative Service examinations. However, after meeting Kanshi Ram in 1977, she gradually came under his patronage, and was part of his core team when he founded the BSP in 1984.

She became very close to Kanshi Ram. For some time, the elderly Kanshi Ram was living in her house. But, prior to this mayawati also had intimacy with him. She always denied a sexual relationship with late Kanshi Ram but the truth is unvailed. Her followers says she loves Kanshi Ram and had sexual relationship with him. His family filed several cases against her, claiming that she had imprisoned Kanshi Ram in order to hijack the BSP legacy[6].

Political career

In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the BSP as a party to represent the Dalits, and Mayawati was one of the key people in the new organization. In 2001, Kanshi Ram named her as his successor.

She was noted for her colourful and aggressive language - though she denied some of the more offensive slogans like tilak tarajo aur talwaar, inko maro joote char (the signs of the upper castes, let's beat them down with our shoes)[7]. She is particularly antipathic to the media, which she thinks is ruled by the upper castes (manuvadi). Her political success is in working with the grassroots, and not through the media, which has led to her being called "the ultimate outsider"[8].

BSP was formed in April 1984, and immediately fielded Mayawati for its first election campaign from the Kairana Lok Sabha seat in in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1984, and then again for the Lok Sabha seats of Bijnor in 1985 and Haridwar in 1989[9]. Although they did not win, the electoral experience led to considerable groundwork over the next five years, (working with Mahsood Ahmed and other organizers), and in 1989, the party won 9% of the popular vote, and 13 seats in 1989, and 11 in 1991. Because the Dalits are widely-spread over the state, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati then adopted a policy of attracting other groups, which continues till today.

Mayawati first won for the Lok Sabha elections in 1989 from Bijnor. In 1995, while a member of the Rajya Sabha, 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 in 2002-2003.

In 2003, during one of her tenures as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati was accused of corruption by the opposition, Samajwadi Party. The Samajwadi Party legislators presented a video casette and a CD to the Governer of Uttar Pradesh, which they claimed showed Mayawati asking her MLAs to hand over money from their annual constituency fund towards BSP's party fund[10]. Shortly thereafter, Mayawati got more than 140 cases filed against her bete noire and head of Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, for alleged misuse of the Chief Minister's Discretionary Fund when he headed the government in 1995-96. She also got first information reports (FIRs) registered against other leaders of the Samajwadi Party.

In her tenures as Chief Minister, Mayawati has erected a number of monuments to Dalit heroes like Bhimrao Ambedkar, Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, Gautam Buddha and others[11].

The Taj Corridor Scam

In 2002-2003, Mayawati was charged with corruption in the Taj Corridor scam, a project to upgrade tourist facilities near the Taj Mahal, during her tenure as Chief Minister. It appears that some Rs. 175 crore allotted to this project may have disappeared. The case is currently under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Initially, the case saw some rapid progress, when CBI conducted extensive searches on her various addresses, and claimed that though she had claimed income of only Rs. 1.1 crores during her tenure as CM, her bank balance in a single bank went up to 2.5 crore and total assets held by her were estimated at Rs.15 crore[4]. At one point an warrant was out for her arrest, but she was granted a stay[12].

However, since late 2003, investigations appear to have slowed down; there are speculations in the media about political interference[13], and the Supreme Court has several times pulled up the CBI for its tardy progress in the case.

Electoral sweep, 2007

In the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Elections, BSP under the leadership of Mayawati won 206 seats out of 402. Contrary to all the poll predictions, BSP won an absolute majority, the first such majority since 1991. In addition, the result has changed the nature of Indian politics. Against the backdrop of coalition politics, which is being experienced by many states of India in the 1990s and later, the mandate of UP in 2007 elections set the stage to form the government by the single largest party, BSP.

The most significant feature is that she attracted support from across India's complex caste spectrum. Brahmins, Thakurs, Muslims and OBCs voted for the first time for a Dalit party. The one common characteristic of this "rainbow coalition" or "social engineering" is that they constitute the dispossessed, left behind in the remarkable economic growth and development following India's post 1991 liberalization and deregulation reforms. As usual, this was accompanied by a colourful slogan: Haathi nahin, Ganesh hain, Brahma, Vishnu Mahesh Hain: The elephant (BSP Logo) is really the wise Ganesh, the trinity of gods rolled into one.

Mayawati as Chief Minister, 2007

Mayawati was sworn in as chief minister of UP for the fourth time on 13 May 2007. Her announced agenda is focused on social justice through laws and other means for weaker sections, providing employment instead of distributing money to unemployed; her slogan is to make Uttar Pradesh into an Uttam (excellent) Pradesh.

Her first action was to suspend two IAS officers for non-performance to maintain the Ambedkar park in Lucknow: B.B. Singh, Vice-President (LDA), and S.K Aggarwal (PWD Principle Sec.) and also one other lower rank officer. It is widely believed that these officers were close to the outgoing government of Mulayam Singh Yadav[14].

She also transferred around 100 police officers [15]. She has also opened case files relating to land deals of the leading actor Amitabh Bachchan in Barabanki, who was close to the previous Samajwadi Party regime.

Since attracting the votes of upper castes, she now talks about a policy for poverty-based reservations rather than caste-based reservations. [16]

With a large number of MLAs with her from the populous state of UP, Mayawati may have considerable influence on the election of the next President of India (in electing the president, each MP / MLA has a vote proportional to the electorate he represents, each UP MLA has 208 votes, and each MP has 708)[17]. Thus, there is considerable speculation on who Mayawati may support in the July 17 elections [18][19][20] [21][22].