With 206 seats in her kitty, Mayawati need fear no trial of strength in the 15th Uttar Pradesh Assembly next week. But in this nondescript village at the end of a winding dirt track, some 60 km away from the state capital, her trial may have already begun.

If the Brahmins are waiting to see if she proves any different from her predecessors, the Dalits, too, admit they are expecting a lot more than before “now that she has got a majority of her own”. As for the Yadavs and other castes, they have quickly seized upon her promise to serve the “sarvjan samaj” and are waiting to see how that actually plays out.

Except for a glimpse of a ragged sacred thread beneath his unwashed grey vest, there is little to tell Govind Prasad Shukla apart from the rest of the crowd. He is very much part of the motley group of young and old men — some playing cards, the others idly chatting — in the dusty courtyard of a mud-and-thatch hovel in what continues to be called the “harijan basti” in this sprawling hamlet miles away from Barabanki town.

But unlike the others who have voted for “haathi” in the past several elections, this is the first time that Shukla, a down-at-heel Brahmin peasant, has joined their lot. “Yes, this time all the Pandits in the village voted for Mayawati for the first time,” says Shukla, freely joining the impromptu post-poll analysis that we have triggered off.

... contd.