Crushing the lotus under its foot, toppling the cycle by the wayside, and spurning the gratuitous offer of a helping hand, Mayawati’s blue elephant danced its way to a spectacular victory today — giving not just the first clear electoral verdict in Uttar Pradesh since 1991 but also turning age-old caste equations on its head to create a social compact of historic significance.

Beyond the statistics and the politics, the big story of today’s election results is that the little elephant, midwifed by Kanshi Ram less than 25 years ago, has grown to be a giant tusker. But a tusker that has shed its early aggression and single-point vision to offer everyone — Brahmins, Banias, lower OBCs and minorities — a bit of space on its wide back. And with the Dalits firmly in saddle as the mahout.

Belying even the most optimistic exit poll predictions but confirming ground-level impressions during all seven phases of the long drawn out Assembly polls, the Bahujan Samaj Party managed to convert the palpable undercurrent in its favour into a clear majority of its own with 210 seats.

The much-hyped “three-way contest” turned out to be just a one-elephant race, with the Samajwadi Party notching under 100 seats and the BJP registering its worst performance in nearly two decades. Rahul Gandhi’s road shows and his repeated appeal to youth to vote for “development” made no impact either, with the Congress failing to maintain the paltry 25-seat tally it had won five years ago.

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