Beware of Mayawati and her Navratnas

Once upon a time there lived a man by the name Sheikh Chilli. The ambitious Sheikh Chilli was a poor man with high dreams, and his daydreaming went on expanding endlessly.

Ultimately, the story goes, he faltered by shaking his bloated head and poor Sheikh Chilli was grounded, with all his dreams shattered.

Sheikh Chilli is the current inspiration and role model for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. Like Sheikh Chilli, super-ambitious Maya is also dreaming very big.

Mayawati wants to occupy the coveted throne of the prime minister of India. Mallika-e-Hindustan, if you please, nothing less.

She has no interest in understanding, nor has she taken any lessons from history.

She has heard the names of some prime ministers, though. Her ready-to-please sycophants have incessantly echoed this lucky Dalit woman's 'right' to become PM.

She has, therefore, started aping prime ministers like Manmohan Singh, Indira Gandhi, Inder Kumar Gujral, H D Deve Gowda, Chandra Shekhar, V P Singh etc.

Did you mention the patriot Lal Bahadur Shastri? No way, he was far too transparent and honest.

Outscoring those other single-digiters who became prime ministers, Mayawati feels over-confident of winning over 50 Lok Sabha seats. If those gentlemen could make it to the PM's chair with a paltry number of backers, why can she not claim her rightful place, goes her logic

Indeed, why not?

She is convinced that she will hold the balance of power in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

Whosoever wants Maya Chilli's support will have to make her the prime minister. Nothing short of her pound of flesh will satisfy this greedy politician.

If they do not concede her one and only demand, Maya Chilli will resolutely shake her head in just the manner Sheikh Chilli had done.

She will refuse to support that party. Sonia Gandhi and L K Advani to please note.

The recent Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan assembly election results have no doubt acted as a spirit-dampener. But our day-and-night dreamer Maya Chilli refuses to open her eyes and read the writing on the wall.

She also wants to model herself on the lines of the strong-willed Indira Gandhi.

She apes her and acts in the same dictatorial style as Indira Gandhi did in her prime. Maya Chilli little realises the damaging power of the electronic media which was almost absent in Indira Gandhi's era.

Like Indira of the pre-Emergency days, Maya Chilli too has completely cut herself off from the common man. Like Indira Gandhi, Maya Chilli has become inaccessible to, nay isolated from, most bureaucrats except her small coterie of loyalists-cum-sycophants.

During the Emergency (June 1975 to January 1977), it was famously said that bureaucrats crawled when Indira Gandhi asked them to merely bend.

Today, an intermediate-pass makes the all-powerful IAS officers dance to his tunes! Maya Chilli is simply beyond their reach.

Cabinet ministers have to wait for weeks even for a fleeting dekko.

Maya Chilli nurses the illusion that she is a devi(goddess).And like the devi she has to remain invisible/inaccessible to all those who seek a darshan (audience).

Even the media has to pick up routine handouts. When Madam condescends to address the media, they have to bear the humiliation of lapping up Maya Chilli's dull monologues and reading from a prepared text.

No questions from the free and fearless media at Maya Chilli's press conference.

Maya Chilli excels in aping Manmohan Singh who took the help of dubious individuals to save his government during the confidence vote on July 22. So she, too, has decided to avail of their unstinted support to help her form the government at the Centre.

So what if the dreaded Atiq Ahmed is accused of killing her party MLA and loyalist Raju Pal or that Maya Chilli had herself put Atiq Ahmed behind bars to score a political point.

'My MLA Raju Pal was killed during the Samajwadi Party's rule, but accused SP MP Atiq Ahmed was allowed to roam free. It was in my rule he surrendered and is now in jail,' she claimed just the other day.

Today, she has brazenly inducted that very same Atiq Ahmed into her inner circle of hatchet men.

Mukhtar Ansari and Afzal Ansari were with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mukhtar Ansari is accused of killing Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnanand Rai.

Mayawati even informed us that 'Mukhtar Ansari remained free till I came to power. He surrendered in court when on my directions the police tightened the noose.' She has since revised her views and hijacked him without batting an eyelid.

The Ansari duo and their goons will, henceforth, work for Mayawati.

Pandit Hari Shankar Tiwari is the veteran warlord from eastern Uttar Pradesh. He has an edge because he is a Brahmin and she is wary of disturbing her social engineering process till the coming general election. His two sons will therefore 'fight' for her.

She has also succeeded in hijacking Arun Shankar Shukla alias Anna from Mulayam Singh's Lucknow camp. He will now use his goons and muscle power to wrest the Unnao Lok Sabha seat for her party.

What about her erstwhile number one target, Raja Bhaiyya, whose vast property she had ordered to be ransacked and ruthlessly put him behind bars?

How naive and gullible can you get! Of course, she has ensnared the dreaded Raja Bhaiyya and wants him to support her for which she has agreed to forgive and forget.

Someone the temerity to ask Mayawati why she was patronising 'criminals'.

Without hesitation Mayawati shot back: 'When these very 'gentlemen' could have dinner with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, then why can I not avail of their support to fulfill my dream of becoming the prime minister?'

Imagine the scene: Maya Chilli as prime minister surrounded by Atiq Ahmed, Hari Shankar Tiwari, D P Yadav, Guddu Pandit, Shekhar Tiwari, Arun Shankar Shukla 'Anna', Mukhtar Ansari, Akhilesh Das and Daddan Mishra.

India should dread the prospect of being governed by the dictatorial Mallika-e-Hindustan Maya Chilli duly supported by her Navratnas!