BSP founder Kanshi Ram chose the colour blue for his party as he wanted it to spread as far as the sky. If he had been alive, he would have been truly overwhelmed.

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For, in Lucknow on Friday it was difficult to tell where the BSP’s blue hoardings ended and where the azure skyline began.

The grand show fawning party leaders, government officials and BSP workers mounted to please UP chief minister Mayawati on her 55th birthday on Saturday.

The Dalit diva will inaugurate welfare schemes worth Rs4,000 crore to mark the occasion.

All this, when Mayawati has given out strict instructions that her birthday this year should be celebrated with utmost simplicity.

The BSP chief seems to have been compelled to observe a semblance of sobriety due to the income-tax case pending against her for gold and diamond jewellery, and other lavish gifts she received on earlier birthdays.

The final hearing in the disproportionate assets case the CBI is pursuing against her in the Supreme Court is also slated for next month.

Such slight considerations, however, have not taken away the glitz and glam of the birthday celebrations.

The roundabout near the chief minister’s official residence is bedecked with blue lights and larger-than-life cut-outs of Mayawati, Kanshi Ram and other legendary Dalit leaders.

Mayawati wears a corporate look in a checkered long coat. Shimmering lights adorn the iron railings all along the route she was expected to take to visit her dream project, the Ambedkar Park, on Saturday.

Two white elephants (artificial ones, of course) with trunks in trumpet mode stand at the entrance.

The elephants are not the only ones trumpeting a fanfare for the Dalit icon. Congratulatory hoardings put up by BSP leaders describe Mayawati as a “messiah” of Dalits, poor and downtrodden.

Not to be left behind, government departments have also put up huge sign-boards broadcasting the Maya regime’s achievements.

Acutely aware of Mayawati’s narcissistic streak, both party leaders and government officials have taken care to paste Mayawati’s fair and smiling face on all the. They know, for Mayawati, the legend is not important. The facade is.