By IANS
Lucknow : Exactly two months after high profile birthday celebrations of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, the state is now preparing for a bigger bash this Saturday to mark the 74th birth anniversary of her political mentor and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder, the late Kanshi Ram.
Not only has Mayawati declared it a public holiday, she is understood to be personally monitoring the mega celebrations planned for the day.
The state capital has been plastered with hoardings, banners and buntings announcing the March 15 celebrations, while the city skyline is covered with blue BSP flags.
Almost every hoarding, earlier carrying different messages of the chief minister, is now covered with new printouts to mark the March 15 event.
The hundreds of hoardings and buntings carry comparatively larger portraits of the chief minister rather than the party founder to whom the day is to be dedicated.
Among the day’s main events is a party workers’ meet to mark the inauguration of the new plush BSP state headquarters at the state capital’s most sought after Mahatma Gandhi Marg.
A magnificent ministers’ bungalow was pulled down so that the new BSP office on the sprawling 50,000 sq feet plot could come up there. The government machinery was engaged round the clock to ensure it was completed before the March 15 deadline.
Another key function – distribution of awards instituted in the name of Kanshi Ram – is to be held in the 3,000-capacity hall of the local City Montessori School.
Among others, Mayawati would honour cricketers Praveen Sharma, Tanmay and Iqbal with Kanshi Ram Khel Ratna, while some well-known authors are to be conferred the Kanshi Ram Award for Literature.
However, no one is willing to talk about the amount of money to be spent on the mega event.