Massive turnout to rallies an indication that the Bahujan Samaj Party will return to power says UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Sharat Pradhan report.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, who cast her vote in Lucknow on Sunday, proclaimed, "We are going to once again form the government in this state." 

She was replying to questions by an inquisitive media that waited for her for hours at the Lucknow Montessori School polling centre near Mall Avenue where she drove down to cast her vote.

"The massive turnout at my election rallies across the state was a clear indication of my party's return to power," the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo said.

While declining to respond to a volley of questions by reporters, she headed for her vehicle amidst heavy security to drive off straight to the helipad from where she flew to Bundelkhand to address an election rally.

She was accompanied at the poling centre by her party general secretary Satish Chandra Misra, who was also the party's Brahmin mascot and the face of Mayawati's much hyped "social engineering" that was believed to have propelled her to power in 2007.

Her government's cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh was also with her. Both Misra and Singh cast their vote at the same polling centre.

The entire route from the chief minister's official residence to the polling centre was flanked by cops, while sweepers were put to work since morning to spruce it up. For a change the road was not washed, as is routine when Mayawati steps out of her impregnable ivory towers.

Photograph: Sandeep Pal