It could be called the Bahujan Beltway — the street that stretches from BSP president Mayawati’s sprawling bungalow in the power-jammed Mall Avenue, winding into Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, half-a-mile away, to the monumental and imposing pink stone Bahujan Samaj Prerna Kendra, and the lavish state party headquarters next door — and it is where the action will be tomorrow.

It is business as usual at the Kendra, inaugurated in 2005 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the BSP’s debut in power. Workers are putting finishing touches to the three-floor marbled halls, topped by a stately viceregal-style dome. The Kendra houses a library and the halls have wall-size mammoth murals of the BSP president, conceding one each to founder, the late Kanshi Ram, and her parents. At the headquarters, a few workers loll with ease sipping tea on garden benches.

But the buzz at the gates of 13 Mall Road, ‘Behenji’ Maya’s residence does not impress her neighbours, BJP’s Lalji Tandon and the SP’s Azam Khan. It is unusually normal on the street outside though the underlying excitement of tomorrow’s verdict for the party is felt within Maya’s house. Black Cat commandos crowd the gates guarding their custodian who has been ensconced in her house all day. And it is with a mix of thrall and scorn that her staff watch the white Ambassador cars with their lal-battis on top whirr in and out of the gates all day.

“Arre saab, IAS aur IPS log saare din aate, jaate hain (bureaucrats have been coming in and out all day). What can I say, they come to give their greetings to Behenji and leave,” says a staffer at the reception. It’s a senior administrative officer who has met party leader Babu Singh Kushwaha — while Behenji Maya only meets the top brass, lower ranks get to meet state leaders.

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