Lucknow, Aug 28 (IANS):  In a surprise move, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Thursday told her partymen to stop collecting funds for her birthday celebrations with immediate effect.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) boss had made it a practice to observe her birthday - Jan 15 - with much fanfare for which huge collections were made well in advance. She was born in 1956.

Her birthday was significantly described as "arthik sahyog diwas (economic support day)".

Addressing the concluding session of her two-day party national executive meet, that drew BSP leaders from different parts of the country, she stated here Thursday evening, "The practice of fund collection on my birthday is being done away with and there should be no raising of funds from my next birthday."

The decision is understood to have been prompted following widespread criticism of the practice, especially after the murder of PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta in Auraiya on Dec 24 last year. Gupta was killed allegedly by a BSP MLA because he refused to contribute to the birthday fund.

Mayawati had earlier justified the collection drive on her birthdays by declaring,"My party is not a party supported by industrial houses and affluent businessmen like the Congress and Samajwadi Party. Therefore it has been an established practice in our party to collect funds on both mine and the party founder Kanshi Ram's birthday."

In order to build up the party kitty, Mayawati announced a hike in the membership fee from Rs.20 to Rs.40 and declared the launch of a special membership drive from Jan 1 to March 31 next year.

According to the party constitution, the membership fee is revised after gap of every five years.

The BSP boss also trained her guns at the Congress-led UPA government at the centre for the "unprecedented rise in prices of essential commodities" and announced a nation wide dharna and street demonstrations "to expose the anti-people and pro-capitalist policies of the union government".