Agencies/Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati accused in US cables of sending her private jet to pick up a pair of sandals denied the claims yesterday, and said the man behind the disclosures should be put in a mental asylum. Mayawati bases much of her support on the marginalised Dalit (“untouchable”) community to which she belongs, and other poor, low-caste groups. US diplomatic papers released by the WikiLeaks website reported a string of allegations about her lifestyle, including a claim that “when she needed new sandals, her private jet flew empty to Mumbai to retrieve her preferred brand.” Mayawati, 55, who rarely speaks to reporters, called a press conference in the state capital Lucknow to condemn Australian-born WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing the confidential US embassy messages. “Either he is mad or he is playing into the hands of our opposition,” she said. “He is doing such mischief deliberately. I request the government of his country to put the owner of WikiLeaks into a mental asylum.” “The report is wrong, baseless and disgusting. It is aimed at maligning my reputation and that of my honest party workers.” “As far as I am concerned, I do not know of any such thing. But if WikiLeaks and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) leaders are making such a wild claim, then I would like to ask them, if they also flew down in that plane to get me those special sandals?”Referring to the opposition reaction and a press conference by BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Mayawati said: “The smirk on the face of the BJP leader as also some other opposition leaders who were busy getting cheap thrills out of the WikiLeaks cables shows that the opposition parties were in league with WikiLeaks, obviously with the sole intent of tarnishing my image.”Mayawati also dismissed allegations that she had food tasters to guard against being poisoned, saying “they would have to be cleaning utensils in my kitchen to know such details”. According to the US cables, state Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh and close aide Satish Chandra Misra also spoke against Mayawati.She responded by saying: “Certain statements about me attributed by WikiLeaks to my two trusted men - Satish Chandra Misra and Shashank Shekhar Singh - were also evidently motivated with petty politics. “As a befitting reply to all those who were behind this conspiracy, let me make it loud and clear that all this has only prompted me to give both of them greater importance in my scheme of things.”Misra, a general secretary of Mayawati’s ruling Bahujan Samajwadi Party, denied that he had called the chief minister corrupt.The Rajya Sabha MP said he would sue the newspaper that had published the cable and serve a “legal notice to WikiLeaks for making this baseless allegation against me when the fact remains that I did not meet any foreign delegate between May 2007 and December 2007.” The US cables dating from 2007 to 2009 said Mayawati celebrated her birthday each year by receiving millions of rupees in gifts from “sycophantic party members, civil servants and business people,” while officials vied to feed her cake. They also described her as “a first-rate egomaniac” who was “obsessed with becoming prime minister.” It added an account of Mayawati making a state minister do sit-ups as punishment for a minor protocol error, and reported it cost $250,000 to run as her party’s parliamentary candidate due to “institutionalised corruption.” Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) performed below expectations in the 2009 national elections, winning 21 seats in the 543-seat parliament. But the unmarried former schoolteacher, known as the “Dalit Queen” for her loyal vote base, retains strong support among millions of low-caste Indians across the north of the country. Mayawati has often been criticised for extravagance, erecting huge statues of herself in public parks and being greeted at rallies with garlands made out of Rs1,000 bank notes.