Keeping her 61st birthday celebration to be a very low affair, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, will use the opportunity to address her Party workers and demand a `victory’ in the coming elections as a `gift’ to her. The birthday will be also celebrated `simply’ on coming Sunday (January 15) as Election Commission of India would also keep an eye over the celebration mainly to ensure that there should be no violation of model code of conduct.
Sources said that there won’t be any cake or gifts for Behanjee (Mayawati) and the event would be celebrated in a simple manner due to the ongoing assembly elections, a senior party leader said. A senior Party leader confirmed that Mayawati had invited the media persons to address a press conference at 11:30am on Sunday through which she will also address her workers and leaders as the programme will be covered `live’ by many electronic channels, facilitating the blue brigade members to get `direction’ from their supremo. A direction has been already passed to all the BSP workers to listen to Mayawati speech and follow it if they wanted to celebrate Behanji’s birthday.
Interestingly the BSP is known to celebrate Mayawati’s birthday in a grand way with cakes weighing as much as her age and huge garlands. Before her birthday, party workers launch a massive fundraising campaign across the state. Each MP and MlA are given a target to collect a certain amount of money. Every year before her birthday, the party launches month-long campaign and later party leaders hand her (Mayawati) a money bag with crores of rupees as a gift on her birthday. The money is used for the party’s election campaign. After cutting the cake, Mayawati addresses party leaders and workers. In 2010, when she was the chief minister, opposition parties attacked her over the gift of a cash garland worth Rs 25 crore given by party leaders on her birthday. Besides, during her government in the state, an engineer was lynched to death in Auriyya for not paying donation for the birthday.
One of the BSP leader on condition of anonymity said that besides model code of conduct, demonetisation has also played a spoilsport for this year’s birthday of Behanjee. “There is cash crunch post-demonetisation and people with large cash have come on the radar of the Income Tax, Enforcement Directorate and other agencies. The donation campaign has been shelved. If a leader wishes to give fund, he can deposit it in the party coffer,” a zonal coordinator said on condition of anonymity. During her 60th birthday in 2016, Mayawati had asked party workers to keep the event simple and connect with the common people in a meeting with senior party leaders, zonal and divisional coordinators. She also asked party office-bearers to ensure that there was “nothing loud”.
The BSP has been celebrating the day as ‘Jankalyankari Diwas’ or Public Welfare Day and party leaders are asked to connect with the needy and the poor. They also visit Dalit villages and hospitals and distribute fruits and blankets among the poor. However, this time Jankalyankari Diwas will be not celebrated in pool bound states which included UP, Uttrakhand and Punjab. Mayawati also released her autobiography `Blue Book’ that will include a list of her latest achievements. The 12th edition of the blue book will be released this year.