Two 55-kg cakes for Mayawati’s birthday Saturday

LUCKNOW - Two 55-kg cakes are waiting to be cut on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s 55th birthday Saturday.

Mayawati herself will cut one of them at the official celebration in the morning at the newly constructed state-of-art Ambedkar Auditorium of the Ram Manohar Lohia Law University here. The other cake will be cut by a group of local citizens later in the day.

This is being done at the initiative of the Lucknow Sindhi Association in collaboration with traders of the city’s main shopping street Hazratganj, which has undegone a remarkable makeover on its completion of 200 years.

“We are cutting the cake to celebrate the chief minister’s 55th birthday which coincides with the 200th anniversary of Hazratganj whose old glory has been restored because of her kind disposition”, Sindhi Samaj president and leading Hazratganj trader Murlidhar Ahuja told IANS.

The official birthday celebrations will commence at 10 a.m. with the inauguration of Ambedkar Auditorium , which would be followed by unveiling of plaques of various welfare schemes and development projects worth Rs.4000 crores by the chief minister.

The projects include memorials, statues, roads, bridges, flyovers, sewage treatment plants, water supply and drainage schemes, power installations and other major and minor infrastructure for different parts of the state.

A group of Buddhist monks have been specially invited to bless Mayawati on the occasion.

Meanwhile, the entire state capital literally turned blue, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) colour. While canopies of blue lights were put around each of the memorials, dedicated to BSP icons, including herself, virtually the city’s key thoroughfares were flanked by hoardings emboldened with birthday greetings.

Late Friday night the chief minister personally went around the blue illuminations along with her father, mother, brother, sister and other family members who arrived here from New Delhi earlier in the day.

No sooner than she expressed her desire to undertake a round on the eve of her birthday, officials suddenly got into action to get the roads and pavements clear of dirt. Water was sprinkled all along her route while a huge contingent of police was busy clearing the roads not only of vehicular traffic but even pedestrians.