Maya's Brahmin mascot suffers heat stroke; faints on stage

Exhausted on account of exposure to the scorching heat, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Brahmin mascot and party national general secretary Satish Chandra Misra fainted at a Brahmin rally in Khalilabad town, about 200 km from Lucknow, on Saturday.

He was addressing a rally of upper caste Brahmins -- a task recently entrusted by party supremo Mayawati to him for a bringing Brahmins into the otherwise essentially Dalit-dominated BSP -- when he suddenly dropped unconscious on the stage itself.

Panic prevailed among the few thousand Brahmins who had gathered at the venue to listen to Misra. 

Party activists and leaders rushed him to a guest house where a doctor attended on him. The doctor described it as “effect of exposure to acute heat”.

In large parts of Uttar Pradesh, temperature has shot up to 42 degrees Celsius already.

Misra returned to Lucknow by the evening and has been advised rest.

Significantly, the BSP had soared to victory in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly election largely as a consequence of shift in the party’s traditional policy of sticking only with the cause of Dalits, and throwing open the party’s doors to the upper castes under Mayawati’s new slogan -- “sarva jan sukhaye; sarva jan hitaye” (for the happiness and well being of all castes).

The exercise was undertaken afresh last month when Mayawati herself addressed a Brahmins meet organized by Satish Misra in Lucknow.