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.

“This election has given the BSP a zabardast result,” she read out from her now trademark handwritten notes, “after 14 years of an undecided polity, with no party getting a majority, the people of UP have finally installed a single-party government to power.” Then, thanking the people of the state for rising above caste and class to vote the BSP, Mayawati underlined that the values of the revolutionary icons of the Dalit Samaj — from Periyar, Narayana Guru, Jyoti Rao Phule and Shahuji Maharaj — had won.

Mayawati’s success has been resounding for several reasons. She is the first leader to instal the first Dalit government to power in the country. She has also turned the Dalit-Brahmin equation on its head, giving the upper-castes their first taste of power through a Dalit government. It is also the first successful and fruitful win for the BSP after the demise of her mentor, Kanshi Ram.

The ride has been anything but easy. While her opponents sunned in the spotlight, Mayawati shunned the public glare as she set about building the party “superstructure.” She pulled together a band of trusted leaders, who put the building blocks of the organization to make it ingenious and efficient. From choosing candidates to choosing strategies, the BSP soon earned the reputation for “systematic structuring” in information-gathering and dissemination, mobilizing people and opinion, working out the arithmetic — as much as the chemistry — of caste configurations and community allegiances and strengthening the party’s organization from the district level upwards.

To add to this, Mayawati enforced a strict regulation of discipline, focus and dedication to the party’s ideals and goals, which ran through the rank and file with unwavering determination. It was seen from rally to rally, from Sitapur to Barabanki — the crowds did not come to hear stirring speeches but to be reassured their leader was there to take care of them and bring an end to the enduring injustices and callousness.

Her pluck and resolve to achieve her goals gave her a sheen of ruthlessness as she cold-shouldered prospective allies, rejected their overtures, ridiculed the doomsdayers, even scorned the media. So it was, with a fleeting smile that today she mocked the media: “I know you were upset I did not meet you during the campaign but I noticed that you had already run ahead with your conclusions, so I thought why disturb you?”. She clearly enjoyed the ripple in the audience. “I had always said the real survey would come on counting day. I am proved right. It is also time for you to introspect,” she added.

Clearly savouring her victory, Mayawati magnanimously introduced and praised her trusted team as the “flagbearers of the BSP’s political strategy who successfully won over the Brahmins, Muslims and OBCs.” But she swiftly underlined her primacy: “They carried out my guidelines which I had prescribed for the party.” The aides looked on gratefully.

Is Maya’s public abrasiveness more arrogance rather than radicalism? Perhaps not, as this election has revealed, the people have voted for her tough style for good governance, her iron-hand over the administration, her fierce insistence on good law and order.

So, it is with light-heartedness Maya retorted to a question on the fate of the rival she ousted, Mulayam Singh Yadav. “Why should I hurt someone who is dead, who has already been punished by the people of Uttar Pradesh?”

Mulayam’s CBI parting shot

• On May 9, just two days before the counting day, CM Mulayam Singh Yadav gave his government’s sanction allowing the CBI to prosecute Mayawati in the Taj Heritage Corridor scam. Investigating the Rs 175-crore scam, the CBI had filed a chargesheet against Mayawati before a lower court in Lucknow in March this year.

BSP 208
Seats in 2002: 97
Seat gain/loss: +111

Mayawati castes a spell

• Carefully broadening her base, BSP got formula right: core of Dalit votes plus chunks from the upper castes and Muslims.

• Will force BJP, Cong to think hard

SP+ 97
Seats in 2002: 147
Seat gain/loss: -50

M and Y don’t add UP

• Mulayam did not lose votes —in fact, got 1% more. Maya cut into his Muslim-Yadav combine .

• Faces hostile governments in Lucknow and Delhi, his Third Front dreams now lies shattered

BJP+ 50
Seats in 2002: 97
Seat gain/loss: -47

Battered in land of Ayodhya

• Kalyan Singh promised Lodh vote, Thakur Rajnath Singh the upper-castes but saffron wipeout

• Feel-good factor from Uttaranchal and Punjab fades, braces for inter-party fights again

CONG 21
Seats in 2002: 25
Seat gain/loss: -4

False start for new leader

• This was Rahul’s dry run before the big one but party’s face of the future kept invoking family’s past to evoke nostalgia. Few bought it.

• Maya doesn’t need his numbers