Angry Maya gives Amethi a mouthful

‘‘No way,’’ says Sanjay Singh, husband to Ameeta, ‘‘no way is the name going to be changed. Amethi is Amethi and if you have to change it, name it after my late father, not after someone who has no context here. Who is this Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj?’’

Good question, because everybody here is asking. Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj was a 19th century Dalit protagonist from Kolhapur. ‘‘Kanpur-Sultanpur we are aware of, but wherever is this Kolhapur?’’ asks an offended retainer of the superannuated Amethi Palace.

But it’s not the royals of Amethi that bother Maya memsahib, it is Amethi’s reigning dynasts — Sonia Gandhi, MP, and Priyanka Gandhi, regent to her seat. It is them that she is out to teach a lesson to, brandishing a broom that would sweep history, geography and dynasty, all in one huge swish.

Late last month, Priyanka decided to take up cudgels on behalf of one Shambhunath, a Dalit from nearby Punnpur village nearby, who alleged his land had been grabbed by a Thakur. Priyanka seized the issue and raised a storm. She forced an FIR to be registered and demanded that Shambhunath be given back his land; she wouldn’t tolerate such high-handedness in her family seat. But what was a show of bravado for Priyanka was temerity for Mayawati. How dare someone other than herself take up a Dalit’s cause in Uttar Pradesh? She had the FIR quashed on the plea that Shambhunath’s complaint was bogus and decided the Gandhi’s had gone too far. They couldn’t be allowed to become Dalit champions, not while she was around.

‘‘Maine unka naam-o-nishaan mitane ki thaan lee hai, she is believed to have told the Cabinet meeting that formally decided not to let Amethi be Amethi any longer, ‘‘Pata nahin kya samajhta hai apne aapko yeh parivar (I have vowed to uproot them from here, I don’t know what this family thinks of itself).’’

A Cabinet minister confided in Lucknow that there were murmurs of dissent at Mayawati’s proposal. Her BJP allies, in particular, had reservations about the move — another Dalit icon, another set of memorials, what will become of the upper caste vote? But Mayawati overrode them waving an approval from the Prime Minister himself.

And if she did fetch assent from the top BJP leadership, what might have done the trick is her resolve to ‘‘uproot’’ the Gandhis from their homeground; the BJP hasn’t managed so far, why not let Mayawati take a shot?

And a potshot at the Gandhis, Mayawati is quite bent on. Not for nothing did she call a rally here ten days ago and ensured, trucks, trolleys, rented crowds and all, that the stadium was full.

Not for nothing did she dedicate the stadium — built in the Rajiv Gandhi era — to B.R. Ambedkar, not for nothing did she came with an Ambedkar statue in her caravan and left only after she had installed it at a crossroads in town. ‘‘Yeh kisi ki jaagir nahin hai,’’ she told that rally, ‘‘poore Uttar Pradesh mein naya raj aa gaya hai, Gandhi parivar ko maaloom hona chahiye (This is nobody’s fiefdom, all of UP has a new dispensation, the Gandhi famiy should know).’’

The spite has gone so deep, the Mayawati government has begun obliterating Amethi, a name synonymous with the Gandhis, even before the name officially changes after the Election Commission completes delimitation operations.

Till not so long ago, Amethi began to appear on the milestones verily the moment you left Lucknow; today, Amethi is nowhere to be seen. Only a couple survive and they appear once you have already entered the outskirts — they are in front of the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital, where Priyanka usually camps during her sojourns, perhaps a sardonic concession to a sworn rival.