New resolutions

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has directed BSP workers to ensure that there be no fund collection on her next birthday. In the words of the press release issued by the party,the economic cooperation being given on her birthday was being abolished from next year. Mayawatis birthday,January 15,has been for years a key date on the BSP calendar. Denoted Arthik Sahyog Diwas,its extravagance would draw scorn from her detractors,but Mayawati skilfully used the occasion to politically position herself as a symbol of empowerment. This year,however,there was the stench of controversy when a PWD engineers murder was alleged to be connected to a party MLAs demand for contributions so the announcement could be seen as a corrective.

If the development intrigues,it is because Mayawati has tended to be a game-changing force in UP. In the months since the Lok Sabha elections,the confrontation with the Congress has been so charged and often personal that she is seen to be at a crossroads. The question is: how will she wage her political battle? By asserting her position as a now long-serving chief minister with a surprise and,by the states recent history,rare majority in the UP assembly won by an electoral promise to rectify law and order? Or by personalising criticism levelled against her,by portraying disagreement as slur?

Put another way,could the order against fund collection be an indication that the personality cult may become less integral to Mayawatis politics? Her capacity to surprise cannot be under-estimated,as she showed with her painstakingly constructed social coalition in the 2007 assembly elections. Now,as she takes on her political opponents from a position of incumbency,could a change be on the cards?