Faisal Fareed
Daijiworld Media Network - Lucknow

Lucknow, Jan 15: Dressed in her favourite pink dress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati exhorted her cadre to present her with a 'victory gift' in the elections as her birthday present on Sunday.

Though the pomp and show was missing, still Mayawati showed her grit and hold over the party with senior party leaders converging to wish her 'happy birthday'. "Due to model code of conduct, my workers are celebrating my birthday in a low key manner with their familiy members," she said.

With an eye on elections, Mayawati gave a detailed account of her strategy. She also released the seventh edition of 'BSP Movement', a book penned by her outlining the dalit BSP movement. The English version of the book along with poll publicity material was also released. She also issued party's candidate list for the 403 assembly seats.

Justifying the denial of tickets to several ministers she remarked: "In previous election some politicians who are not related with our movement joined us and got ticket. They won the election but did nothing for the party. We have denied tickets to them."

The best was in store over the covering up of her statue and elephants in the parks and memorials constructed by her in Lucknow and Noida. "This action reflects the anti-dalit mentality of Election Commission. It has issued such order under pressure from Congress. But I should thank them as media carried the stories and we got free publicity," she remarked.

She stated that elephant statues have been erected in the parks which are synonymous with the tradition of welcoming the guests. "I had constructed my statue as per the last wish of our founder Kanshiram. There is no harm in it," she said.

Mayawati also narrated that lotus flower is seen at several  places while Congress symbol of 'hand' is erected at a park in Chandigarh. Even the symbol of Rashtriya Lok Dal is handpump which is set up in several villages. "Will election commission also cover them," she said.

She also stated that election commission has sent her a letter to pressurise her yesterday night. "We had given a reply to the letter. I urge the election commission not to be one sided and conduct the polls in a free and fair manner. They should not work under pressure form Congress," she said.

Mayawati urged her partymen to work hard for winning more seats than the previous elections for forming the government again in the state.