Mayavati

On Saturday, Mayavati will put all her newest jewels under lock and key. Not her diamonds but those more precious to her political ambitions — her new MPs.

The chief minister knows that the Bahujan Samaj Party candidates who are declared winners will immediately become a target for poachers from other parties.

So she has stayed put in Lucknow, cancelling all her official engagements, to arrange “security” for her MPs and despatched confidant S.C. Mishra to Delhi to judge which way the wind is blowing there.

All 80 BSP candidates in the state have been sent instructions to contact Mayavati as soon as they obtain the certificate of victory from the returning officer. Sources said that each one has been told: “If you win, tell your families that you would be out of bounds for the next 15 days.”

The large guesthouse at the party headquarters on Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg has been vacated and cleaned to make room for the new MPs. Ten rooms have been booked at a five-star hotel too.

The MPs, whatever their number, will be under virtual house arrest at these places till the process of government formation ends in Delhi.

Mayavati believes she can play king-maker if her tally crosses 40, but fears that an under-30 show would leave her MPs even more vulnerable to poachers, the sources said. The exit polls had left her angry but her district leaders yesterday reassured her that the party would win at least 35-40 seats.

The BSP leadership fears that both the BJP and the Congress would play the poaching game, with the Samajwadi Party doing the field work for the Congress.

At least 15 BSP candidates are former BJP or Samajwadi members, and if any of them wins, they could be the ones to be tapped first, the sources said.

A party official said that both the BJP and the Congress had made overtures to Mayavati through Mishra but she had refused to oblige either as of now. Left leaders are in constant touch with her.

Mayavati might travel to Delhi on May 18 to attend a third front meeting if the group musters enough MPs to be in the reckoning.

“But if the third front is unable to get the numbers to form a government, she is expected to make a fresh political move,” a source said.

Party members believe that Mayavati might tilt towards the NDA if it concedes her tough demands, one of which could be to make her deputy Prime Minister.

Her first preference, of course, is to be Prime Minister, a possibility that a third front government can open up.

The state Congress today said the party would go for a “natural” alliance with the Samajwadis rather than hobnob with the BSP.