The first sign that BSP president Mayawati gave her household that it was an exceptional day was when she did not pick up her pad and pen to write, in her customary longhand, pages and pages of thoughts and musings. Instead, she chose the remote control to watch the early morning news, just as the counting of the crucial Assembly polls began.

Within two hours, the broadcasts were predicting a landslide win for the BSP but Mayawati stayed locked in her room confabulating with her lieutenants, the BSP’s Brahmin mascot Satishchandra Mishra, and OBC leader Babu Singh Khushawa. She was on the phone, too, to her other trusted aide, Muslim leader Nasimuddin, who kept her abreast of the news on the ground as the phone rang incessantly relaying in the victorious news from all over the state.

By late noon, as the BSP whizzed past the half-way mark to leave behind her rivals in shock and defeat, an exhilarated and elated party, and a sapped and wearied press corps finally forced Mayawati to address a press conference. It was swiftly arranged in the imposing Bahujan Samaj Prerna Kendra, near her residence. Her crack party organization — the same one that swept the polls — cleaned and carpeted the floor, arranged flowers and distributed swaying piles of mithai boxes to the waiting media.

There was an easy gait and familiarity as the BSP’s victorious Behenji strode into the cavernous hall of the Kendra, to address her first press conference as the Chief Minister designate of Uttar Pradesh. No visible expression of elation, she tried to downplay her down the magnitude and signficance of her victory in an unusually matronly manner — admonishing pressing camerapersons and reporters to sit down and be orderly. Finally, flanked by her three lieutenants, the triumvirate of Mishra, Siddiqui and Khushawa, Mayawati addressed the waiting crowd.

... contd.