Mayawati's image takes a beating

Ahead of the assembly polls slated for next year, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati’s image appears to have taken a beating in the wake of revelations by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks describe her as autocratic and personally corrupt.

An angry Mayawati on Tuesday slammed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange saying he should be sent to a “mental asylum” in Agra. Assange hit back, saying instead of shooting the messenger she should take up her case with the US if she has a problem with the contents of American diplomatic cables.

The cables leaked by WikiLeaks last week had described how Mayawati once allegedly dispatched her empty private jet to fetch her favourite sandals from Mumbai. The cables also claimed Mayawati had food tasters to sample her meals and a “security entourage to rival a head of state”.

Even as Mayawati claimed it was a “political conspiracy” to malign her, P L Punia, her long-time political aide and now a Congress MP, has backed the allegation that she functions as a “dictator dogged with eccentric paranoia”.

Condemning Assange in violent terms for the contents of the cable which claimed her top aide Satish Mishra told US officials that the UP chief minister has a “penchant for personal corruption” and “a strong authoritarian streak”, Mayawati seems to have further indicted herself.

Responding to Mayawati, Assange said, “Mayawati has betrayed the rational thought. The question is, has she also betrayed the Dalit?”

Punia, the former bureaucrat who worked under Mayawati during her three tenures as chief minister in 1995, 1997 and 2002, said: “During my work, I found her highly autocratic and undemocratic. In fact, she stopped the practice of the CM meeting Dalits at his or her home. She keeps away from them.”

Citing an example of her dictatorial and eccentric behaviour, Punia highlighted how in 2007 then finance minister K K Gautam, a Dalit, was removed three days before he was to have presented the budget in the Assembly. He was replaced by Lalji Verma, who represented the relatively upper Other Backward Class community.

“The reason being that she suddenly felt that Gautam, a Dalit presenting the budget, would garner publicity. She feared her Dalit vote-bank might start looking at Gautam anew as equally empowered. This she wanted to prevent at all costs,” says Punia.

Punia, who is now chairman of the National Commission for the Scheduled Caste, asserts “Mayawati is wholly anti-Dalit. She has ensured that under her, not a single Dalit rises in politics or elsewhere. In fact, she is so paranoid that she has always projected herself as the only Dalit icon to the masses.”

In his rebuttal to Mayawati, Assange even said Mayawati should send him a private jet to England to fetch him where he has been detained and he would be happy to accept asylum in India. “In return, I will bring Mayawati a range of the finest British footwear,” he said in a statement.