By IANS
Lucknow : While the city turned a BSP blue, Uttar Pradesh ministers and top bureaucrats gathered at Mayawati’s pink festooned home Tuesday to sing “Happy Birthday” and watch the chief minister, glittering in solitaires and a brocade salwar kurta, cut her cake – and eat it too.
Attired in an elaborate outfit in a light shade of her favourite pink and wearing a dazzling double string of solitaire diamonds, Mayawati was all smiles as the TV camera lights shone on her at her 52nd birthday celebrations in her official residence.
Well-known for celebrating her birthday in style, Mayawati was flanked by close aide Satish Chandra Misra, who is the party’s Brahmin face, and Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh who were amongst the first to offer her the cake.
While most of her cabinet colleagues had been told to stay in their respective areas for the day, there were some Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ministers who made it a point to be there as did many top officials of the state, including Chief Secretary Prashant Kumar Misra and state police chief Vikram Singh – all coming one by one to offer Mayawati tiny pieces of cake.
The Taj chef, who had created the huge white chocolate cake, with the long message ‘Behenji ke 52ven janmdivas par hardik badhaiyan’ (best wishes to behenji on her 52nd birthday) inscribed on it, himself rolled a round flower bedecked trolley holding the cake right up to the chief minister’s dais.
But what seemed to have thrilled the birthday girl most was a morning call from United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and another from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Sonia Gandhi wished me ‘happy birthday’ at 9 a.m. while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called up all the way from China to greet me,” she said with a big smile at the plush conference hall of her residence.
The state capital had been virtually painted in the BSP blue and the skyline was plastered with hundreds of hoardings showering greetings on the chief minister.
Security was tightened right from the traffic roundabout leading to her official residence on Kalidas Marg. There were as many as 16 hoardings along with a gigantic wooden gate draped in blue with pieces of mirror work.
Under fire from various quarters for plundering the state exchequer for her extravagant birthday celebrations, she was doubly cautious this time.
“Not a single paisa of the state was spent on my birthday celebrations this time; all expenditure was made by the party organisation, even the illumination and decoration in and around my official residence has been billed to the party.”
She also clarified that the birthday cake was courtesy Satish Misra.
This was her day to launch schemes for the poor and the downtrodden, and lay the foundation stone of the ambitious Rs.400 billion Ganga Expressway from Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh to Noida in the western edge. The 1,040-km long expressway will be completed in four years.
Mayawati went on to give exhaustive details of how the project would transform the entire economy of an industrially backward Uttar Pradesh by emerging as a new mega engine of development.
All roads leading to the official residence were given a festive look. Giant- sized welcome arches and gates draped in the BSP blue and lights literally painted large areas of the neighbourhood blue.
Popular Hindi film numbers adapted to praise Mayawati blared from loudspeakers installed at BSP buildings, including the chief minister’s residence, right from 7 a.m.
And she insisted: “I have asked my party colleagues to remain in their respective constituencies and attend to the problems and grievances of the poor and downtrodden; they were to also provide financial assistance to the needy.”
As if to buttress her point, she went on to add, “I have made it loud and clear to my party colleagues that this was the best gift they could give to me on my birthday.”
Full page advertisements in national dailies listed Mayawati’s many plans for the day – besides the expressway, the launch of a programme for rehabilitation and resettlement of those displaced by the highway project, a new health insurance scheme promising free treatment to below-poverty-line families and a Rs.16 billion action plan for nine drought-hit districts.
She left for Delhi in the afternoon to join the second leg of the celebrations there. The third volume of a book on her struggles, “Mere Sangarshmai Jeevan Evam BSP Movement Ka Safarnama Part-3”, was being released there.
In New Delhi too, the roads around Mayawati’s residence in Humayun Road were festooned with banners and posters.