Maya celebrates birthday with pomp

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who turned 52 on Tuesday, celebrated her birthday in style. Like her birthdays in the past, celebrations this year, too, were thrown open to the public, first in Lucknow and, later in the day, in the national Capital.

Candles were blown, cakes were cut amid rendition of the birthday song from her family-members, fawning party colleagues, bureaucrats and police officials, and pieces offered to her from all those gathered at the two functions, all in front of the multitudes of visual and print journos in a brazen, some would say outlandish, display of power and wealth.

While the Lucknow part of the celebration was held in her official residence, in the Capital, a conference room in a prominent five-star hotel had been converted into the venue for her press conference held late in the afternoon.

But before waiting journalists who had gathered there in hundreds could be bombarded with Ms Mayawati’s sound-bytes, they were subjected to a tamasha. The UP chief minister, the newspersons were informed by state cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, would be celebrating her birthday with them.

A cake, replete with candles, was subsequently wheeled in and perched on a table placed right in front of the BSP supremo, attired in a pink suit, and looking resplendent in a glittering diamond-necklace, diamond-studded earrings and new hair-do. She was flanked on the two sides by her father and party general secretary S C Mishra. As if on the cue, they were soon joined on the stage by their family-members.

With the cameras clicking away furiously, a beaming Mayawati cut the cake. Those present on the stage applauded the gesture by applauding and then breaking into the birthday song. Her father subsequently got up, and offered her the first piece of cake. He was followed by aide S C Mishra, and then by her family-members. The last man in the queue was the chief minister’s loyalist for several years, Rajan, now a Rajya Sabha member.

The ritual had been re-enacted earlier in the day in Lucknow. Dressed in a zari embroidered, peach coloured dress Mayawati beaming in a two strand diamond necklace and danglers, cut the birthday cake at a function held at her Kalidas Marg residence.

Besides Mr Shashank Shekhar Singh and Mr S C Mishra, senior bureaucrats J N Chamber, Navneet Sehgal, DGP Vikram Singh, ministers Babu Singh Kushwaha, Nassemuddin Siddiqui and Swami Prasad Maurya crowded around her while she cut the cake, and sang “happy birthday Behenji.’’

The show was not over yet and they then lined up to offer her cake from their own hands. Later she announced the launching of controversial Rs 40,000-crore Noida-Ballia expressway project and favouring a three-way division of the state.