Gandhi called the untouchables Harijans and Mayawati, Uttar Pradesh chief minister, has lived up to the expectations of her community, considered untouchable just some time back. She also epitomizes Gandhi’s call to justice to the fairer sex. Being pampered as the ‘Dalit Queen,’ Mayawati has carved her own place in not only Uttar Pradesh politics but also in Indian polity. Stakes are, that she might turn out to be first Dalit woman prime minister for the country.

In a country where just some time back, there was a grueling disarray of an individual’s right to freedom and confusions prevailed whether the untouchables have the freedom to live as per their will and wish, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati stands strong in Indian politics. Enjoying her fourth stint as chief minister of a state that was notorious for the worst treatment of the untouchables and Dalits, she has very candidly assumed the role of a state maker. Today, she enjoys Z plus security cover and a huge bank balance that has led to a lot of uproar in the opposition circles.

Indian politics, for the last 50 years has witnessed that Uttar Pradesh decides the party or coalition at the center. Mayawati being the chief minister of the state and her party becoming the single largest in the state assembly shows the either facets of Indian politics- a woman at the helm of the politically most significant state of the Indian union, and a Dalit leader ruling over the most caste divided state. Mayawati hails from western Uttar Pradesh, where girls are being killed by their parents to avoid dowry or love marriages. Dalits too are the victims of atrocities and economic slander in that area. But Mayawati has proved both wrong by her steady but powerful ascendancy in the political circles. She has even grown beyond her mentor Kanshi Ram and her Bahujan Samaj Party.

It is her shrewd and effective political moves that snatched away the political kingdom of Uttar Pradesh from the claws of Samajwadi Party and the Bhartiya Janata Party. But, her involvement in questionable projects, amassing of wealth in the name of party, birthday bashes, and her own projection of beyond the persona image has certainly brought controversy. Mayawati is one of the many political leaders, the most prominent Dalit politician of the current Indian politics.

Source: Independent