Lucknow, May 12: BSP supremo Mayawati will be sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time on Sunday after Governor T V Rajeswar on Saturday invited her to form the next government.
Hours after Mayawati was elected unanimously as the leader of the BSP Legislature Party, she drove to Raj Bhawan at 3 PM and gave a letter to the Governor seeking that she be invited to form the government.
She told reporters after meeting the Governor that she would be taking the oath at 1 PM in the lawns of Raj Bhawan.
She declined to answer questions on whether any ministers will also be sworn in tomorrow saying the media will be informed as developments take place.
"I have not taken any decision in this regard so far. I will inform you when I take a decision," she said.
Mayawati arrived at Rajbhavn at 1600 hours and remained there for 45 minutes.
She was accompanied by BSP General Decretary S C Mishra.
Mayawati, who will be the state's 32nd Chief Minister, said she had also informed the Governor that the BSP had secured absolute majority.
It will after 14 years that the state will be having single party rule.
Mayawati decimates opponents
When all others were entering into alliances and seat adjustments, Mayawati fought Assembly elections single-handedly and without even a manifesto to decimate her opponents and become chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time.
The 51-year-old daughter of a humble government employee from western Uttar Pradesh, however, stitched a coalition of Dalits, Upper castes, Muslims and Backwards in a bold new experiment to get an absolute majority in the elections.
It was the first time that the BSP was in the electoral fray without the presence of Kanshi Ram, who died last year, and is all set to capture power virtually on its own. In her three earlier terms as chief minister, Mayawati headed coalitions.
Born on January 15, 1956 in Delhi, Mayawati's crowning moment came in 1995 when she became Chief Minister of the country's most populous state though she remained in office only for four months as the coalition with Mulayam Singh Yadav ended abruptly.
In 1997, the spinster again became Chief Minister for six months under an agreement with her bitter rival, the BJP. The arrangement did not work and ended in political chaos in the state in late 1997.
Mayawati occupied the Chief Minister's office for the third time in 2002. Her government formed with the support of the BJP lasted 18 months. She had to resign in 2003 after she was indicted by the Supreme Court in the Taj Corridor case. A CBI probe was also ordered in the case.
Daughter of an employee of Post and Telegraph department, Mayawati, who has six brothers and two sisters, had participated in youth agitations in her student days and was always eager to do something for the Dalits, backwards and minority communities.
She had worked as a teacher in different government schools in Delhi from 1977 to 1984 besides being associated with Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation. She left teaching in 1984 and entered politics full time.
Mayawati joined the BSP launched by Kanshi Ram and contested the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. However, her electoral debut was a failure as she lost the polls from Muzzafarnagar.
She had also lost two bye-elections to the Lok Sabha from Bijnor (1985) and Haridwar (1987) and anyone else in her place may have given up.
But she was tenacious enough to contest for the third time from Bijnor and entered the Lok Sabha in 1988.
She was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1994 and made a mark with her bold, fiery speeches for the cause of the weaker sections.
During the April 1999 confidence vote after giving broad indications that her party would abstain from voting which could have saved the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Mayawati led her BSP flock in voting against, thus triggering the fall of the government.
Being new in Parliament, Mayawati was not conversant with rules and regulations. What appeared to impress her was the practice of some opposition members to rush to the well of the House when the issues raised by them were disallowed by the Speaker and often gherao the Speaker's podium.
Even at the slightest provocation, she would rush to the Speaker's podium. Nevertheless she was quite inquisitive about Parliamentary practices and keen to learn.
Her meeting with Kanshi Ram changed the course of her life. It was in 1984 -- the year of Indira Gandhi's assassination that Mayawati met, for the first time, her future mentor.
She was teaching in one of Delhi-administration run primary schools. Perhaps, her aggressiveness impressed the little known Kanshi Ram then and both developed an instantaneous rapport.
Gradually, Kanshi Ram came close to her family and Mayawati's house in a slum in the capital was for years decorated with two huge framed pictures of the late leader.
Mayawati's hostility towards upper castes, little respect for ideologies, conventions and niceties drew scorn. Her hostility towards upper caste was attributed to hard knocks of life when she wa s a student.
The scorn of higher caste students during her college days might have turned her into a rebel and a fighter. Having graduated from the Delhi University, she qualified for a law degree and later did B.Ed from the Meerut University.
Bureau Report